Seeing it took a month to pursuade Livingstone City Council that ‘elephant high’ grass in the park opposite Chanters Lodge was non-conducive to business as well as being dangerous and unsightly, this recent article in LusakaTimes came as no great surprise. (The grass has since been slashed, see pictures above!). More surprising perhaps is Mayor Mwinda’s admission in the article that they are ‘incompetent and negligent’. We are in no hurry to pay the rates bill we received on January 4th (nothing much incompetent about the fast delivery of that!)

“Livingstone Mayor Joram Mwinda says incompetence and negligence of duty were major factors that contributed to the city council’s failure to submit its 2010 budget to the Ministry of Local Government and Housing. Mr. Mwinda said he was particularly disappointed with management at the Livingstone City Council (LCC) for failing to submit its 2010 budget by October last year, as the development had resulted in the public andLocal Government Ministry losing confidence in the institution.

The mayor said this in an interview with ZANIS in Livingstone on Wednesday January 13. He said failure by LCC to submit the budget was a draw back to the tourist capital and had impacted negatively on the esteem with which people regarded it. Mr. Mwinda however, said the Local Government and Housing ministry was kind enough to give the local authority an extension period in which they were required to submit their budget by January 14, 2010.

To that effect he revealed that, a delegation comprising of the Chairman for Finance and Deputy Director of Finance among others had been sent to the Ministry Headquarters to make certain that the budget was submitted. And Mr. Mwinda said measures had since been put in place to ensure similar occurrences did not repeat themselves in future.”

Yeah?