Favourite K. Chisi

Western Province Minister Kapelwa Mbangweta has disclosed that government has paid all farmers in the province for their produce. Mr. Mbangweta explained that government had initially planned to purchase 500,000 metric tonnes of produce from farmers, but increased production following its call for farmers to grow more food resulted in government purchasing about 1.7 million metric tonnes. He said the significant increase in the volume of produce meant government had to mobilise additional resources to settle outstanding payments to farmers. Mr. Mbangweta said once the funds were secured and made available in Kaoma, government worked with Access Bank, the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) and the Ministry of Agriculture to ease the payment process. He explained that Kaoma, Nkeyema, Luampa and surrounding areas have traditionally relied on a single bank to facilitate payments to farmers, but the more-than-threefold increase in the number of farmers requiring payment created additional pr...

The Higher Education Authority (HEA) has disclosed that, as a measure to curb the proliferation of fake professors and safeguard the quality of higher education, the Authority intends to propose amendments to the Higher Education Act to introduce a mandatory recognition system for professors. HEA Director General, Professor Kazhila Chinsembu , says the idea is to establish a national register of HEA-accredited professors. Speaking at the official opening of the first Summer School on Media Training, Prof. Chins said the presence of a number of bogus and fake professors in Zambia, saying these individuals have neither conducted credible research nor published a single peer-reviewed journal article. “We have also observed the proliferation of fake professors whose publications are limited to predatory journals,” he said. Prof. Chinsembu explained that predatory journals are deceptive academic publications that masquerade as legitimate scholarly outlets but exist primarily to extract mone...

The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has defended the K700 salary increment agreed between government and public sector unions, describing the outcome of negotiations as a good deal considering the economic challenges faced by the country. ZCTU Secretary General Joy Beene says the 27 public sector unions commenced negotiations with government last year, ahead of the expiry of their collective agreement in December. Mr. Beene said the negotiations were difficult and at one point reached a deadlock, prompting government to request a recess to allow it to undertake consultations and seek a further mandate. He said the recess also gave the unions an opportunity to consult their members and economic advisers before resuming negotiations. Mr. Beene explained that the unions employ qualified researchers from the University of Zambia to provide economic advice during collective bargaining. He said union leaders do not simply arrive at salary demands based on figures proposed by...