By SAM PHIRI and MUNAMBEZA MUWANEI –

IN proper planning and development of modern residential areas, service lines, and roads are to be prioritised before construction of houses – a technical fact that has been cast dark in many Zambia’s municipalities.
This has made the private sector capitalise on this weakness and is now making huge profits after acquiring huge pieces of land and servicing, thereafter reselling at an exorbitant price. The reason is clear – serviced plots.
Other developers have gone further by constructing housing units in these well-serviced areas and selling them at mostly imaginable prices.
With the desperation of accommodation, this has proved a lucrative business for the private land business executives.
They have justified their exorbitant prices, citing the servicing of the areas which the councils have failed to do.
Questions have come up why the councils only seem to concentrate on putting up beacons and not servicing settlement areas in advance.
When such issues are brought to the fore, the possible and common response expected is that the budgets for such undertakings might go way beyond affordability of the councils looking at the ever-growing population against the stagnant growth of the local authorities.
Lusaka’s Chalala, Kamwala South and Libala South are good examples that up to now still grapple with sub-serviced road network and water service lines in some areas although Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC) has tried under difficult circumstances to service these areas.
Many people who have built in these areas have sunk their own boreholes as they do not know when the areas will be serviced.
But the issue is that most of the plots in the aforementioned areas were only legalised way after some unscrupulous people had already gotten their fare share of the land and built on it.
This has proved difficult for both town planners and service providers like the water utility companies.
LWSC, for example, says the three residential areas have already been developed making it difficult and costly for them to put up service lines.
Public relations manager Topsy Sikalinda says in places like the Multi-Facility Economic Zones (MFEZ), service lines were connected way before construction commenced.
He says in the case of the three residential areas under review, the utility company will find it difficult to service them because of the risks associated with such an undertaking.
“It is not only a major challenge but also a costly undertaking because as you may be aware, most of these areas have a lot of rocks.
So for us to blast these rocks, we will need specialised controlled blasting so that we can safeguard the buildings and lives,” he says.
Mr Sikalinda reveals that the utility company got a loan amounting to K10 million from Zanaco to finance the servicing of the three areas.
According to Mr Sikalinda, the utility company would have spent less than half the amount had the laying of main service lines been done before construction.
“Most of these areas like Kamwala South, Chalala and Libala South have been serviced and we are only remaining with an area called Rockview but these other areas have been serviced though we would have paid half if we had done it before construction,” he says.
In Ndola, the issue of budgetary constraints comes out prominently as a major reason for the non-servicing of the sold-out plots.
Ndola City Council (NCC) public relations manager Roy Kuseka admits that when the local authority opens up an area for occupation, it can only do as much as a semblance of access roads.
Mr Kuseka’s reason comes round to the issue of less finance that would not enable the local authority fully service these areas although the gusto of doing the same still lives in hopes.
“For now, the resources can only allow us to grade the areas and put a semblance of roads for possible access to the plots by the would-be developers,” Mr Kuseka says.
With the hope and gusto for development, Mr Kuseka says the local authority had not neglected its responsibility of servicing residential areas but that the projects would kick off as soon as financial resources are made available.
“We can’t attach a time frame but all I can say is that we have not turned a blind eye to such issues,” he says.
Mr Kuseka reveals that the council was between 2010-2011 allocated K8 million for land development by the Ministry of Lands which they used to grade some of the roads in Mitengo and have further requested for K9 milion to enable the local authority to service the Dola Hill area.
Recently, Government degazetted Ndola National Forest number F38 and the council advertised for residential plots although service lines and access roads have not yet been put up.
With the advertisement in the public domain, it is very much likely that construction will commence before the area is serviced, making it more expensive to undertake after construction.
Councils need to do more and put servicing of areas earmarked for residential development as a top priority, especially when developers pay for facilities needed in the areas opened up.