Stalled Livingstone bus station, market projects depriving council and Government of revenue

The author is a Zambia Daily Mail Correspondent

PRIOR to co-hosting of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) conference in Livingstone and Victoria Falls Town in Zimbabwe back in 2013, Government embarked on numerous developmental projects.

Among them was the construction and upgrading of most township roads in the tourism capital, Livingstone to bituminous standard.

It was understandable because, at that point, Zambia and Livingstone in particular was to host a high profile international conference and everything posterity demanded that everything be on point.

Other than just roads, Livingstone residents could not wait for the construction, and ultimately, commissioning of two ultra-modern facilities that were also directly linked to Zambia's hosting this high profile conference - the bus terminus and the city centre market.

Truth be told, the two projects are but in a class of their own.

Take for instance the bus terminus, situated along Nakatindi Road. It was going to be the first of its kind in Zambia and was to provide high economic and social value to Livingstone.

The market on the other hand, situated in the central business district is three storeys high. It too was going to add high economic and social value to the city.

But five years have since passed and what initially started as a promising undertaking to the locals here, has somewhat 'lost its breath' at the eleventh hour.

When they started constructing them, everyone in Livingstone was happy that not only were the two structures going to add beauty to the tourism capital, but they were also going to create employment - both directly and indirectly to the locals.

For the local authority, the speedy completion of the two structures was going to be as good as a 'pot of gold' in terms of revenue collection.

The main contractor for the bus terminus is ZAMCHIN Construction Company with the lead consultants being Ndilila Architects and Associates. Works were scheduled to be completed by 15th July 2013 but due to financial challenges, the project has stalled to date at 98 per cent completion.

Similarly, construction works on the three storey steel reinforced modern market commenced on February 22, 2013 and was supposed to be finished by August 31, 2013. It too has stalled at about 60 percent works.

The main contractor was Matty Investments Limited. The market has over two hundred free open stands for marketeers on the ground floor and the floor has been proposed for another two hundred free open stands.

The facility is to have barbershops, salons, butcheries and even banking halls.

According to documents obtained from the Livingstone City Council, the contract values for the two facilities was K55.6 million for the bus terminus and K55.3 million for the market.

But funds have finished and works at both sites have stalled, causing anxiety among people with interests.

Livingstone mayor Eugene Mapuwo has also spoke about how the local authority and Government has potentially lost out of huge sums of money in taxes from the two structures.

In truth, Government through the local authority would by now have reaped a fortune out of the two stalled structures.

In an interview around this time, last year, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure Development Ronald Chitotela said construction works on the two structures weas due to start by June [last year]. Mr Chitotela said Government had engaged the ZNS to complete the works.

Southern province minister Edify Hamukale recently disclosed that the process to engage the defense forces to complete the two structures had stalled due to legal quagmire.

About K81 million is needed for the successful completion of the two projects, according to Livingstone City Council (LCC) assistant director of engineering services Muyunda Muyambango.

The remaining works on the bus terminus are mostly paving and landscaping whereas at the city centre market, all ablution blocks on all the floors are yet to be complete, shops on the first floor are not plastered and require finished and expanded wire ventilation panels among others.

However the case, the question many people of Livingstone keep asking is, ‘when will the stalled construction works of these two ultra-modern facilities recommence?’

We met at Evelyn Hone College: artists Lawrence and Agness Yombwe share their love story

WHEN Lawrence Yombwe, 62 enrolled at Evelyn Hone College, as a 30-year-old young man, back in 1988, he had but one thing on the back of his mind – to find a life companion.

His mission there was very simple.

“I told my friends that I am going to Evelyn Hone to find a woman to marry. I always used to tell myself that if ever I get married, it must be to an artist, or somebody that does something art related. Apart from furthering my studies, I went there to find myself a wife,” he says.

The couple on their wedding

But rewinding a few years, Mr Yombwe never saw himself marrying.

In fact, for all he cared, he was already married - to art. “I never thought that I would get married because I love to do my work.”

He adds: “You know, in my reading and my understanding of things, an artist is already married because the things he produces are regarded as children and so I used to say you can’t fall in love twice because I was in love with my art already.”

That wasn’t the only thing he was scared of.

“I also used to read about how women are disappointing men and a lot of those stories from the Bible about how men had fallen as a result of a woman,” he says. He adds: “So me, I thought I was smart. I used to think men who got married don’t think properly. That’s what I had in my mind.”

He wasn’t going to feel like that forever.

 He says, a time just came when he felt there was something missing in his life. Then it dawned on him, that it was a woman.

“…and at that point, I told myself, ‘she must be an artist too’ or something close,” he says.

God then granted him his wish when he found Agness Buya Ng’ambi who was a year ahead of him at college – Evelyn Hone College studying an Art Teachers diploma course.

Approaching her wasn’t easy.

“When I arrived at Evelyn Hone College, I met some of my friends there and some of them were in their year. They were surprised to see me there because they wondered what me, an accomplished artist was doing in college studying something that I am already good at.

“I told them that I was there to look for a wife and they were all shocked and told me that I was searching at the wrong place,” he says.

It only took him about six months to spot Agness and fell in love instantly.

“It was not love at first sight. I saw her, she was already ahead of me in second year. In my class, nobody met the specifications I was looking for because I had always envisioned someone from my tribe [Bemba], with long hair and so on,” he says. Agness on the other hand was the exact opposite. She is Tumbuka and at the time had long hair [weave].

“But still, there was something about her that just took my breath away,” he says.

After having done his own investigations and a background check on Agness who was the only female student in a class of 16, Mr Yombwe was then sure that she was the one.

“I remember a time when we had a combined class, I took a picture of her drawing without her knowledge of it and it was only later when I went to my room to examine it even further that I realised the potential she had,” he says.

Then he started plotting his move.

“I sat down thinking to myself that if I am going to make her mine, I will need to devise a totally unusual way. In my mind, I was convinced I had a lot of competition. In fact, I thought to myself that she probably has a boyfriend already,” he says.

Agness remembers the words her husband used on her to propose.

Remembering the words he used on her while they sat on a hinge somewhere at Mozambique Hostel, she says, “he told me that he doesn’t mind if he was number 10, all he wanted was to marry me.”

Since he really wanted to marry her and he didn’t want to take any chances, Mr Yombwe used that one date he secured with her to hit the nail on the head and make his intentions known.

“…And I thought you were very crazy,” Agness says while looking at her husband.

Mr Yombwe admits and adds: “I didn’t mind because mine was for marriage. That’s the relationship I wanted from her. I told her to think about it because I was not in a hurry.”

After two to three months of no response to the proposal, Mr Yombwe went back to Agness and told her, “You shouldn’t take so long because you might lose me.”

From there on, one thing led to the other until they started dating.

“It wasn’t easy because in the process they were some other girls who were interested in me and when they learnt that my interest was going to go to her they started coming to me and talking to my friends saying a lot of hateful things about her,” says Mr Yombwe.

He remembers how one person told him that she was barren and would not bare him children.

“Another one told me she already had a boyfriend and he was old. But all those never got to me,” he adds.

The two eventually got married on 5^th January, 1991, soon after Mr Yombwe graduated from Evelyn Hone College in 1990.

The two tied the knot at Regiment Catholic Church and the reception was held at the American Dome in Lusaka Showgrounds.

Their early married life wasn’t easy equally. It too, just like their relationship had its own challenges.

Like how everybody thought Agness, a teacher then at Matero Boys Secondary School would not conceive.

“People would make fun of us and others would even suggest very awful things,” remembers the Yombwe’s.

But they kept their trust in God, and in the third year, Agness conceived but the child died while in the womb.

The two have been married for 28 years now and they have biological two children together.

Yande was born in 1994 and Kondwani was born in 1998.The couple in Livingstone where they own and run Wayi Wayi Art Studio and Gallery.

“It feels like yesterday. We thank God and all the counselling [Mbusa] we went through prior to our marriage,” says Mr Yombwe.