By SYLVESTER MWALE and PASSY HAACHIZO –
KABWE Mayor Prince Chileshe has warned that the local authority has started clamping down on bars allowing teenagers to patronise their premises to protect the children’s lives in the provincial capital.
Mr Chileshe said the council had  noted with concern the number of bars and taverns that were allowing young people including pupils to patronise their premises.
He said raids which would start this weekend were not aimed at disturbing the businesses of the bar owners but to protect the children from illicit acts and secure their future.

CHILESHE

“From this weekend, we are starting clamping down on all the bars that are allowing the children below the age of 18; the law is very clear but we have noted that some bars are allowing our children to drink,” he said.
Mr Chileshe also noted that Zambia’s renaissance could not be realised without adequate investment in young people who constituted the majority of the country’s 14 million people.
He said it was against this background that the Government was committed in matters of youth development as set out in the national youth policy.
The mayor was speaking in Kabwe during the celebrations of Values Day by the Restless Development, a global organisation that promotes the interests of the young people.
“Zambia, having one of the largest youth populations in sub-Sahara Africa, let alone the world, cannot afford to lose the productive potential embodied in young people.
“It is in this regard that the Zambian Government is committed to matters of youth development as set out in the National Youth Policy and the vision 2030,” he said.
Zambia currently has the largest population of the young people in its history with 28.8 per cent aged between 15 and 24 while 36.7 percent were between 15 and 35 years of age.
Restless Development country director HarietMwiinga said her organisation was championing youth led development and pushing for recognition of young people as “Leaders of today and not tomorrow”.
Ms Mwiinga noted that using the young people to influence development would speed up sustainable development that would have a long lasting impact on society.
Meanwhile, the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) in Central province has expressed concern with the escalating levels of drug and alcohol abuse among school going children.
DEC provincial education and counselling department head Cleopatra Kadubi said despite the ongoing sensitisation, cases of drug and alcohol abuse continued to rise in the region.
In an interview in Kabwe Ms Kadubi, said there was need for active involvement of parents and guardians if the future of the children abusing drugs and alcohol was to be secured.
Ms Kadubi named marijuana as the most abused drug by children in Kabwe.
She said in most cases when the juveniles were taken to the Magistrate courts social welfare reports they were referred back to the DEC for counseling.