By CHUSA SICHONE –

.Kalumba

LUSAKA Mayor Wilson Kalumba has said the Lusaka City Council (LCC) is this year introducing measures to end the growing practice by local authorities’ staff of attending to personal business during working hours.
Mr Kalumba also implored the LCC management and councillors to work on improving their sour relationship for the betterment of the local authority.
Mr Kalumba said one of the interventions in mind was introducing Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) so that LCC staffs’ activities could be monitored.
Mr Kalumba said during the Fifth Ordinary Council Meeting in Lusaka recently that he had received numerous complaints against some LCC staff on their attitude towards work.
“It’s also good to emphasise that council staff need to devote 100 per cent of their time on council business,” Mr Kalumba said.
“A lot of complaints are flying around that some of our members of staff are busy engaging in personal businesses during office hours.
This has to stop and the way we can control this is to implement access control.”
Mr Kalumba said besides installing CCTV, the other alternative was introducing a log-in system where the staffs’ attendance at work would be recorded.
He also said he had received a number of complaints, both from management and councillors, against each other, hence appealing to both parties to improve on their relationship for the good of the council.
Mr Kalumba said there was no need for councillors and the LCC management to doubt and be at loggerheads with each other.
The mayor called for the enhancement of the council employees’ medicalscheme, noting that the existing one had resulted in situations where the staff footed their own medical bills with hope that they would be refunded by the council.