Embrace the concept of decentralization-National Local Government Finance Committee told
Written by Humphreys Bomba
Nkhotakota District Council Chairperson Gaziel Chimzere has asked the National Local Government Finance Committee to act with the concept of decentralization when handling matters arising in district councils.
Chimzere made the plea as a response to the committee’s decision to intervene in the process of recruiting personnel who will conduct the 100 percent target Unified Beneficially Registration (UBR) project in the district.
The committee is implementing the UBR project as part of documenting social economic status of people in the country, and Thursday the committee was enlightening Nkhotakota District Executive Committee (DEC) members of the project.
Speaking during the meeting Chimzere stressed on the need for the committee to offer a podium for the council to empower youths on its own under the project, through provision of employment.
His remarks came hot on the heels of the committee’s interference in the process of identifying enumerators to conduct the exercise where among others it wanted to recruit 50 percent of the enumerators from other districts.
“It was a long debate on the sharing of employment of enumerators and we totally disagree as the number our colleagues want to allocate is huge, we therefore asked them to revise the decision. We need a resolution to the assignment given” said Chimzere.
But ICT Officer at National Local Government Finance Committee, Erasmus Chikupila says the committee decided to intervene in the process of recruiting enumerators due to timing factors.
He said, “Of course the Idea is coming due to the timing factor as we want to wrap up the exercise before July since we will use the same data for the Affordable Inputs Program (AIP). However, we have taken note of the concern and we will deliberate it to map the way forward”.
Meanwhile, the National Local Government Finance Committee will be implementing the Unified Beneficially Registration (UBR) project in districts of Kasungu, Dowa, Ntchisi and Karonga.
