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New Heritage Party leader, Chishala Kateka, has called on government to take immediate steps to compansate all the marketeers of Munyaule market, and others in Kitwe.
On February 3, 2023, the Lusaka City Council demolished makeshift stalls at Munyaule market, supposedly to enhance market infrastructure across the city and avert outbreaks of various diseases in future.
Kateka in a statement issued in Lusaka on Monday, demanded that all the marketers across the country whose stalls and shops had been demolished should be compensated.
She noted that the lives of the marketers had been disturbed as they had lost their money and that compensation was but a short term measure whilst more long term measures were being put in place.
“We reiterate our unwavering support for the Munyaule market marketeers who have found themselves at the brutal end of this anti-poor people United Party for National Development (UPND) government,” Kateka stated.
She alleged the UPND government took pleasure in making poor Zambians suffer.
Kateka claimed that the demolition of Munyaule market had nothing to do with development or based on the law.
“We have so many cases of illegal land allocations involving rich people such as the Forest 27 which the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) had said poses an ecological danger to the city of Lusaka,” she added.
Read More: M’membe describes as ‘heartless’ act to demolish makeshift stalls at Munyaule market
Kateka alleged that there were illegal structures that had been built around the city airport, which was a military base, but that these had not been demolished.
She also alleged that the reason was because these illegal and dangerous structures belonged to rich and powerful people, among them supposed UPND Cabinet Ministers.
“So, far from being about the rule of law, the demolition of Munyaule market is just another cruel act in keeping with the UPND government’s policy of protecting the interests of their rich sponsors,” Kateka said.
She further demanded that government should desist from wantonly disrupting and destroying the livelihoods and lives of poor Zambians by not rushing to demolish their properties and businesses in the same way they were protecting their own interests.
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