By STEPHEN KAPAMBWE –

Lying east of Lusaka is Chazanga, an unplanned settlement where every empty space between houses can serve as a road.
It is also  a place where anyone can hurriedly put up a makeshift structure to live in, not taking into account whether such a ramshackle is built on a water utility supply system or obstructing a proposed road way.
Most houses there are either makeshift or not built to any required standard and specification.
Over-crowding is common. One property can accommodate up to eight families living in cramped conditions with little or no access to any form of sanitation. Such families in some instances,  rely on pit latrines of their neighbours for ablution.
At dawn, women and girls with babies strapped to their backs often scurry about with water buckets on their heads, some fetching the commodity from places like  Mandevu, Marapodi and Kabanana townships.
A lot more others  go as far as Olympia Extension.
Unemployment is also rife. Most of the women are engaged in trading activities to earn an income for their households. Assisted by their daughters, the women sell items  like small packs of mealie meal, salt, fresh water sardines and vegetables,  displayed  on small tables outside their houses, where they keep a watchful eye on toddlers playing on the road.
Others move from one place to another,  selling  boiled eggs, smoked cassava, roasted groundnuts, and a variety of other foodstuffs.
The men can be seen lurking at nearby taverns and bars where they share ideas on what to do with their lives over a drink of a localbrew.
Their sons would have ventured into the nearby Matero Township or the heart of town in search of odd jobs.
Violent crime is prevalent largely because of two things; firstly,  some people turn to crime as a source of livelihood, and secondly, there is a high number of undocumented foreign migrants  some of whom are  allegedly involved in illegal activities.
The high population coupled with an absence of social amenities like schools, youth clubs or skills training centres,  make adults and especially  young people,  to be prone to social vices like illegal substance abuse, promiscuity and  lawlessness.
In an effort to bring sanity to this illegal settlement, the Lusaka City Council (LCC), guided by the Housing (Statutory and Improvements Areas) Act Cap 194 of the Laws of Zambia, has initiated plans ton upgrade and legalise Chazanga Township this year.
A statement made available by LCC Assistant Public Relations Officer Brenda Katongola said,  upgrading Chazanga and Mutendere East,  is a top priority for the Local Authority in 2015.
The statement said this is in line with the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) number seven which seeks to ‘achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers in the world by 2020.’
The recognition of Chazanga and Mutendere East as improvement areas by the LCC means once the programme is implemented, the two communities can receive Government and donor support in terms of infrastructure development and service provision.
In other words, these communities which have for a long time lacked roads, properly planned housing and sanitation services,  now stand a better
chance to have such services provided by the Government in collaboration with cooperating partners and other donor agencies as well as the local authority.
Such services include police stations to arrest the high crime rate, construction of clinics to provide health services, and provision of primary and Secondary schools, skills and training centres to benefit the local population.
According to the 2010 Central Statistical Office (CSO) census, Chazanga – which is located in Mpulungu Ward – has a population of approximately 57,956 while Mutendere East – located in Mutendere Ward- has approximately 106,128 people.
As part of the upgrading process, the LCC with the assistance of a non-Governmental organisation called People’s Process on Housing and Poverty in Zambia (PPHPZ), has commenced the process of registering properties in the two settlements.
The registration and numbering of properties will enable the LCC to create a property database to be used for issuance of security of tenure documents (occupancy licences) and for billing of ground rent.
This should be taken as good news by the residents because provision of property registration means that ownership of property in the two settlements would be identified as a form of investment that would be documented and secured by law.
Registration of properties would also be a form of empowerment to the residents who would for  the first time,  have proof of ownership of such  property.
Proof of ownership of property can be used to access short or long term credit from financial institutions for investment.
Besides enabling residents to access occupancy licences, the programme to upgrade the townships will improve living standards of the local
people through improved access to electricity, water supply, sanitation and hygiene and solid waste management.
The statement says the LCC has even opened an office in Chazanga, in particular, to make it easy for the residents to access council services like application for occupancy licences and payment of ground rent.
In order to expedite development and service provision, the council has committed itself to  the use of  35 per cent of the revenue collected from ground rent payments on addressing basic challenges like clearing blocked drains, collecting garbage and rehabilitating market shelters in the community.
Furthermore, a special arrangement will be made by the LCC to expedite processing of occupancy licences to encourage  residents to take advantage of the opportunity to register their properties.
The good news for those registering properties is that the LCC has waived  accrued ground rent arrears that the residents were expected to pay. This means the residents will only be required to pay ground rent charges from the time the properties would be registered, as well as the application fees for occupancy licences.
The LCC is requesting residents in Chazanga and Mutendere East to get more information on the upgrading of their settlements by contacting
the Department of Housing and Social Services in room 403 at the Civic Centre or contacting the council by phone or email.
Chazanga resident Derrick Bwalya said authorities should now put effort in building new markets in the  township so that people trading from houses can have better places to conduct their business from.
Bwalya, a carpenter, said since the majority of residents in the township are engaged in trade in one way or another, new markets would help them have secure and clean places to conduct their business.
“Most people here do not work. All they do is sell this and that, just like me who sells furniture. But we need better markets where we can set up our workshops and conduct our business because working from
houses puts us at risk of being attacked by thieves who might think we make a lot of money,” he said.
Edith Mwangala, a trader, said time had come for the Government and stakeholders to provide schools and skills training centres to enable young people live their lives meaningfully.
“We suffer to bring up our sons and our daughters here (in Chazanga).
As you can see they do nothing here, no schools to go to and no jobs for them.Who wants to employ uneducated people?
“The boys become thieves and the girls just bear fatherless children. Only a few ones find good men to marry them but even then, most of the girls get married off early because there’s nothing they can do to better their lives,” she said.
She said the LCC programme to upgrade her township is long overdue given the speed at which  the population in the area has risen.
She appealed to the LCC to conduct more sensitisation campaigns to help members of the community understand what it means to have the township upgraded and also for them to know what role they can play in bettering their lives.
“Let them come and inform us on how we can work with them so that this programme they have started succeeds for the sake of our children who should at least have an opportunity to live in a better place which we ourselves have had no access to. All we have known is crime, killings, and suffering. This should come to an end and I commend the council for this programme,” she said.
Residents of Chazanga and Mtendere East should now take it upon themselves to ensure that they play their part in the upgrade of the two settlements so that they fully realise the benefits of living in legalised communities.
The residents should also get fully involved in ensuring that services critical to their welfare are made available as and when they need them.
With good roads in place, negotiating one’s way through spaces between houses should become a thing of the past as the upgrade would bring about the construction of better roads.
Crime and other vices eating at the core of the local society, as well as the general breakdown of law and order, should soon be confined  to memories of the distant past for the benefit of  160,000 inhabitants of Chazanga and Mtendere East,  for whom these communities are being upgraded.