By JANE MWANSA and ESTHER NG’ANDU –
THE Kitwe District Education Board Secretary (DEBS) Allen Kaoma says the district administration has embarked on a farming project which will help address some of the problems that schools are faced with.
Mr Kaoma said the initiative would benefit teachers and pupils alike, who were in need of financial assistance.
Speaking in an interview, Mr Kaoma said the administration had cultivated maize and soya beans.
However, they had suffered a setback due to the poor rainfall patterns that had been experienced this season.
Mr Kaoma said management had also started rearing livestock meant to promote diversification in the agriculture sector.
He said the administration had procured 71 herds of cattle, 30 pigs and 100 goats.
“We decided to embark on a farming project so that we can become self-sustaining as a district. This project will also help us address some of the problems that schools are facing such as replacing of blown-off roofs instead of always waiting for Government’s intervention,” Mr Kaoma said.
Meanwhile, Mr Kaoma said DEBS had embarked on a project to construct 12 secondary schools.
He said the project would be funded by area members of Parliament (MPs) and the community.
Mr Kaoma said the construction of schools in all consistencies would reduce on overcrowding in classrooms, which was as a result of over-enrolment in most schools.
In another development, Luapula Province Minister Nickson Chilangwa has launched the restocking of 500,000 tilapia fish in Chipili District.
Mr Chilangwa said the Government was committed to making resources available for revamping of the fish industry in the province.
Mr Chilangwa said it was the Governments desire to enhance the agriculture sector by beginning to embark on a fish restocking drive.
He said Zesco Limited had thus partnered with the Government and would finance the first phase of the project in its corporate social responsibility(CSR) agenda.
The minister said he recently introduced 20,000 tilapia fish fingerlings to Luongo water dam in Chief Mutipula’s area and that 100,000 more fish were expected in Luongo dam by the end of this month.