•NDOLA City Council Building

By DANIEL M’SOKA –

IT is not easy to work with councillors, so say council workers. Council employees yearn for a bodyguard with muscles of a weight lifter in order to be protected from harassment by councillors.
In fact, the situation was grave before the introduction of the Local Government Service Commission (LGSC).
Justice Minister and Patriotic Front (PF) Secretary General, Wynter Kabimba was one such victim of council circus under the reign of Fisho Mwale, because there was no LGSC then. Councillors locked up his office; chased him around in order to grab his official car; wanted to throw him out of his official house; and so on.
At long last, they leveraged their political influence and with the support of late Minister of Local Government Bennie Mwiinga, managed to divest him of his position. It was such a piece of drama you would normally watch at Lusaka Play House.
Hon Kabimba put up a fight because of his strong character and legal profession. However, how many council employees today could match this stamina?
In any case, did the means justify the end or end justify the means? Has the problem of councillor/ employee conflict been resolved?
Councillors want council employees to cringe or genuflect when they meet in corridors. If for some reason, for example, you by pass one of the freak councillors and inadvertently do not greet him, this would be taken for insubordination and a covert campaign to have you fired begins.
Threats of dismissals, infact, come in many ways. Some it’s because a council employee refuses to take instruction to act in a certain manner.
Council employees do not get instructions directly from councilors to act but has to be through the Town Clerk (TC) or Council Secretary (CS).
Not even the Minister of Local Government can instruct a council employee from the comfort of his office unless via the chief executive.
Other reasons for threats of dismissal border on councillors’ immoral conduct and women employees can attest to that.
Recently, there has been a clarion call to ditch the Local Government Service Commission (LGSC). Interestingly, other Commissions like the Public Service Commission and the Teaching Service Commission still enjoy the confidence and support of stakeholders and have been around long. Therefore, just what’s the problem with LGSC?
Interestingly, LGSC is loathed more by councillors than council employees. This in itself makes the whole debate juicy and calls for serious soul searching on the part of policy makers.
It all started as a small fire, when tinder was lit before it became a conflagration. Typical of councilors they all rallied around one person.
President of the Local Government Association of Zambia fired a soprano and a chorus by all councillors followed. Abash LGSC!  Eh?
If this is not the case of wanting to throw the baby out with the bath water, then what is it?
Few weeks ago, for instance, Minister of Local Government Emmanuel Chenda issued a very controversial proposition. He said he was considering revisiting the Grain Levy.
This caused a furore from farmer associations. Later, the Ministry of Local Government announced that it had released K30million for selected councils to clear a backlog of pension claims for retired council employees.
Worse still, there were news reports that the Local Authorities Superannuation Fund was in troubled waters and needed a fillip.
The above litany does not inspire and reads like books of accounts for a bankrupt institution. If not, then why are there  heaps of garbage strewn all over cities like decorations?
Unplanned settlements on the other hand, appear to be the rule and not an exception. Poor sanitation coupled with bad drainage seem to have been accepted as a norm.
In short, councils budget but budget for their own consumption because residents do not see anything for themselves unless projects funded by Government and donors. So, where are the councils?
Part of the problem for the non-performance of councils in Zambia is poor educational standards. Let’s face it if only we want councils to serve residents better beyond Zambia’s Jubilee.
Until recently, this problem was pronounced among employees and councillors. Luckily, employee educational standards have dramatically risen, perhaps, because of the shrunk job market.
But all you need to be a councillor is, at least, a Grade Seven qualification.
Unless this problem is acknowledged and the bull taken by its horns councils in Zambia will eternally remain irrelevant if not institutions simply there to waste public resources.
Gladly, recently a traditional leader in Luapula acknowledged the problem of a common lack of education among councillors and is on record demanding that something should be done.
Zambia this year celebrates the Golden Jubilee.
At independence in 1964 for instance there were around one hundred university graduates, and 50 years later there are tangible signs of what these great men and women did for mother Zambia.
In between 1964 to date, tens of thousands of university and college graduates have been churned out. As a result, these have surfeited the job market to the extent that a lot more could not help it but ride the gravy train of the brain drain.
Therefore, if so many Zambians have higher qualifications and many more continue pursuing advanced degrees, what would be the reason for continuing with the least qualifications for councillorship?
Picture this scene: It is a full council meeting and the meeting is called to order. It is confirmation of Minutes on the Agenda.
On the Correction of Minutes, councillor so-and-so does not even spot that his name was wrongly spelt on councillors present at the last meeting, or is marked absent when, infact, he was present except was busy dosing.
Another councillor so- and- so cannot write his name down in the register of attendees for this full council meeting and conveniently asks a tribal cousin to write it down for him because “you’re my slave”.
The truth of the matter is that this councillor does not know how to write and handle the pen anyway as it would slip and fall.
On the other hand, the chairperson of the meeting, His Worship the Mayor, may be a bit educated or educated per se.
If he or she is a bit educated then the town clerk (TC) or council secretary (CS) will have a lot of work, backstopping.
It will be procedural interjections upon interjections by the TC or SC.
If on the other hand, the mayor has been to school and the university for that matter he or she will have a field day flaunting before these unlettered.
Residents would be very lucky if the mayor simply boasts, otherwise the mayor would empty council financial coffers. In fact, such Mayors are very dangerous because as it happens sometimes the council is left heavily indebted and assets mortgaged because he makes away with a rip off!
In the same vein, the unlettered councillors will also promote anarchy in terms of illegal developments, unauthorised expansion of markets, extortions as it happens at bus stations, and mismanagement of constituency development funds. Most of this chaos is because councillors are not educated to understand the complex role of local administration and the fact that it is a selfless service.
However, in most councils in Zambia the counterbalance has been MPs who also double as councillors; the Guy Scotts, Given Lubindas, Nkandu Luos for Lusaka for instance. MPs tend to bring to councils some levels of education and respectability but can only do so much and not everything as they are a minority.
MPs are usually busy with Legislative work, but can also be overbearing because of their superiority complex over the other councillors.
What’s more they can also manipulate their friends by playing on their ignorance. Is it not said that, ‘Knowledge is superior to ignorance?’
Evidently, managing local authorities worldwide has become complex because of socio-economic advances.
You now have residents who are well informed, educated, aspirational, and analytical, exposed or generally appreciate high standards and long for these.
The lower educational standards for the office of councillor has therefore alienated fairly educated and entrepreneur-minded citizens from fully participating in local affairs.
Yes, leadership is not about education, but leaders must be as educated if not better educated than the people they lead if they are to be effective.
Take for instance a council ward which has on one side middle to high class residents and on the other, lower class residents and these happen to be a majority.
Whereas an educated councillor would find it easier to interact with both sides of the divide, the uneducated one would lean more on the unlettered and possibly ignore the others.
This has both led to apathy in elections and the educated not offering themselves for community service because this position is synonymous with the pejorative term, party cadres.
Now, the scene you pictured earlier has ended. The full council meeting is over. Some councillors passed resolutions they did not understand their implications.
Interestingly, someof them were gazing blankly at few of their friends waxing eloquent. All they did was cheer them up.
One of which was that the entire council management must be fired immediately because there is nothing they are doing. Really?
If the council is not performing who should go first? It is without debate, councillors!
In the developed world for instance, there is now a competition among local authorities.
This competition helps grade councils across various indices or attributes and will help, for instance, a worker decide which city he would like to live in because it either offers best security, leisure, best educational standards for children, etc.
The concept is usually referred to as’ livable cities.’ Apart from appealing to citizens, the grading is also targeted at investors. Investors use it to decide where to take their capital.
The livable Cities concept in Zambia would be very difficult to implement for the reasons cited above.
The lack of education generally has been compounded by the fact that the mayor is elected from among councillors and sponsored by a political party.
Where this concept works a mayor does not need to be a party functionary. The mayor is elected at large by residents based on a sound and realistic competitive manifesto which spells out milestones and a calendar of how and when these would be achieved.
As such, the educated, rich, influential, business persons and charismatic step forward offering themselves for leadership.
Therefore, you find councils are full of quality leaders the like found in Lions clubs or Rotaracts, or in short, civic organisations.
These are solid and service oriented individuals and growing the city’s economy and residents’ standards of living.
If councillors generally are not lettered why would they want to employee experts whose expertise they do not understand? Why do councillors want to abolish the Local Government Service Commission (LGSC) anyway?
That the LGSC is a noble idea is undeniable. Of course, its implementation might be flawed but it needs to be revisited in order for it to deliver its mandate.
Giving counsel recently, an industry expert suggested to Government that, among others, the Commission be retained.
He said recruitments must be carried out in consultation with councils requiring that skill; that Part X of the Local Government Act should embrace an independent Appeals Board; that the councils must participate in the disciplinary process; that guidelines must be drafted for transfers, promotions and training; that there must be a liaison officer between the ministry and the commission so that the ministry does not pay ghost workers and let alone knows what skill and where is being recruited; that performance based contracts be introduced for staff coupled with stringent monitoring and evaluation.
Lastly, the advice suggested that in the event the commission is sacrificed at the altar of the council chamber, the Ministry must still have a unit to closely monitor councils without which residents will never get any service from councils.
Indeed, the performance of councils affects the popularity of the Government in power. Zambia now needs councils that can deliver prosperity, less dependent on the State and which can woo both local investors and FDI.
Have Zambians easily forgotten that UNIP was kicked out because of the slogan “UNIP Cholera”?  This cholera was as a result of poor corporate governance systems in local authorities.