Zambia needs more protectors of the environment
…Lets turn everybody into a whistleblower against environmental crimes
By Professor Munyonzwe Hamalengwa
Zambia has an epidemic of unprecedented proportions which haunt everybody, citizen, non citizen, resident, visitor or passerby in the country, on a daily basis. We fight bigger battles to grow our economy while we stare this epidemic which undermines the enjoyment of any economic growth that we may achieve.
This is the epidemic of environmental crimes and degradation, big and small perpetrated by big and small companies, wealthy and poor individuals alike, truck drivers, car drivers, pedestrians, grocery store owners, merchants, government functionaries, people in homes and the homeless, people in rural and urban areas, people living on farms and those in shanty compounds. Everybody in the entire nation to varying degrees is committing environmental crimes. Everybody suffers health wise to varying degrees from the consequences of these environmental crimes.
This article is written particularly to the New Mayor of Lusaka His Worship Mr Chitambala Mwewa who has shown a modicum of acumen on environmental crimes assailing the City of Lusaka which is the biggest city in Zambia with more people living in it than any other City and town in Zambia. We can use what happens in Lusaka with a caring Mayor as an example of what to do in all other cities and towns and villages. Lets set Lusaka as a pilot project on how to rout out the crimes against the environment. These are actually public crimes against the people and must be punished heavily.
We now have new mayors across the country who now have an example in Honourable Mwewa to emulate in the fight against the cancer of environmental crimes.
Now that Mr Mwewa is a Mayor, he will stop the individual crusader that he was waging and must broaden the fight to include the machinery of government and the culture of whistleblowing that should be created to fight this endemic and systemic cancer.
Mwewa will need the support of everybody. The perpetrators of environmental crimes in all walks of life will fight him ferociously in order for them to continue their activities, benign or truly harmful, some to enjoy the benefits and byproducts of their greedy, especially the big companies, Zambian or foreign.
Let me now start dissecting by examples the magnitude of these environmental crimes which are committed. Everybody can give their own examples as illustrations. On the southern boundary of John Laing there is a drainage system there which is choking with garbage that is brought there by various companies there at night. It appears trucks from various companies situated in nearby premises or vary far away premises come there and dump their injurious garbage there.
They are deliberately exporting garbage there and escaping their responsibility for safe destruction of the garbage they themselves have created. This is the epitome of company greedy without any accountability and corporate social responsibility.
These dumping sites are all the City of Lusaka, and they are also in Livingstone, Ndola, Kitwe and they are developing in small towns and villages as well. To catch these dumping environmental criminals we need concerted and coordinated actions including mounted discrete cameras to catch these greedy and unaccountable criminals.
There is a wall fronting the southern boundary of John Laing on which discrete surveillance cameras can be mounted. In locations across Lusaka and other cities and towns where there are no walls on which to mount the cameras, the cameras can be installed in nearby buildings or trees or by erecting high visible pilons to capture the criminality.
No expense should be spared. We already have cameras in most businesses and parking lots. We can install these to capture environmental crimes.
In broad daylight you will find children rummaging through that garbage at John Laing to find food and unfinished drinks which they eat or drink at the cost of their health and the health of others. Many of these kids may infect their other family members and or friends at school from the diseases they pick up from eating or drinking from the garbage they pick up from this dump sites.
The parents will then transfer such diseases to their workmates in the various offices across Lusaka and Zambia. This kind of analysis based on one dumpsite and the consequences thereof can be replicated millions of times to bring home the effects of unchecked environmental crimes.
Now you can give examples of mining pollution, the unregulated cutting of trees across the country, dumping across the country by companies and individuals and so on. Think of every environmental crime that happens on a minute and daily basis in Zambia and you can figure out the magnitude of the crises we are in.
At the ground floor of the Makeni flyover bridge, hawkers and others leave piles of unsightly garbage everyday. They just leave it there without thinking of others. They, like the big dumpers at John Laing and other places in Lusaka and everywhere in Zambia, have made their little profits or loses and move on or come back the very next day to again dump their garbage there. That garbage blows into nearby parking lots, homes, and drainage systems etc to further replicate the epidemic of environmental crimes. There are millions of places across Lusaka and other towns similar to what is happening under the bridge at Makeni flyover bridge.
Honourable Mwewa is called upon to clean up Lusaka by whatever means necessary. All mayors are called upon to clean up Zambia by all means necessary. We cannot enjoy the fruits of Grow Zambia if we are assaulted by the consequences of environmental crimes every minute of our lives which affect our state of health and happiness.
Honourable Mwewa has a mandate to clean up Lusaka, a mandate that all other mayors also enjoy in their respective jurisdictions. And all Zambian residents are invited to be whistleblowers against environmental criminals. There must be created a national taskforce against environmental criminals. Or call it another palatable name if you wish. The Environment as a subject must be taught as a mandatory course or subject from kindergarten through university and at ZIALE and other professional licensing bodies. The infrastructure for whistleblowing against environmental criminals must be set up.
Grow Zambia must include Grow a Health Zambia.
Professor Munyonzwe Hamalengwa along with Professor Indhu Rajagapol created and taught a course on “Urban Economies” at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Professor Hamalengwa has also written a Module on Environmental Law.
Dr Munyonzwe Hamalengwa
Senior Lecturer, School of Law
Zambian Open University
