By 
Chitambo Member of Parliament, Mutale Chanda, has lamented political interference in the application of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) by central government.
Chanda explained that his Constituency only received about K25, 350 in 2022 but the balance was withheld by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural development for the purposes of purchasing the CDF ‘monitoring vehicle’, which was yet to be delivered.
He said in an interview on Monday that the CDF Committee sat and concluded its business of evaluating and approving all CDF projects, disbursements of bursaries, financing of skills training programmes and awarding of grants in September of 2022.
“To date, council workers have failed to implement projects under the guise of procurement processes. Some council workers who have sought anonymity for fear of being victimised, have testified that there were instructions from ‘above’, directing them not to implement the approved programmes.
“Chitambo CDF account was still holding on to about K19 million unused funds despite the fact that beneficiaries for developmental projects, skills training and grants were already identified and approved by the CDF Committee in September 2022,” Chanda said.
Read more: Politicians must be prevented from high-jacking CDF projects for their selfish ends —Jesuit Centre
He stated that his constituency had six projects, which were complete and were ready for handover in January 2023, equally, beneficiaries for Skills and Grants programmes were also ready to receive their allocations by January 2023.
He said the Provincial Minister working in collusion with the Provincial Permanent Secretary and the District Commissioner (DC) for Chitambo District had made sure that no official handover of CDF projects and programmes takes place.
Chanda said the first handover ceremony was scheduled for March 7, 2023 but it was cancelled on the actual day when everything was prepared and ready to go while the second handover was cancelled in a similar manner.
“All these matters have been brought to the attention of the Minister for Local Government to no avail, I note with dismay the kind of political interference that is being applied on this well-intended Fund,” Chanda said.
Chanda alleged that it was clear that the UPND government had chosen to use CDF as a political tool to whip the opposition at the expense of developing Zambia.
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