Mchinji, February 17: District Commissioner (DC) for Mchinji, Gasten Macheka has called on community leaders in the district to be in the forefront in promoting development activities in their areas if the district is to develop.

Macheka said this on Wednesday at Benjamin Primary School in Traditional Authority (TA) Zulu in the district during his tour on Local Development Fund (LDF) projects.

It was noted that some projects in the district were being delayed because of negligence of some traditional leaders who are not showing willingness to contribute towards the development work.

“Traditional leaders need to work hard on these issues, they should not act like we imposed the development projects on them, they are the ones who asked for such developments but here they are shunning to contribute or mobilize people to do the work,” said the DC.

He further said that his office would ensure such leaders are dealt with to address the problem.

“We need to address the issue of traditional leaders who are negligent the soonest, this will affect development of the district if we are just going to leave it like that,” Macheka said.

It has been noted that some traditional leaders chose not to be involved in any of the activities involving LDF which requires them to mobilize community contribution of sand and bricks for development projects like classroom blocks and teachers houses.

In some areas in the district, the work is going on well but in other areas it is not because of the traditional leader’s idleness.

“The problem is not the builders, the problem is the chiefs, they are not helping us, it is like an issue of only the school committee, imagine the chairman for the school committee is the one taking sand to this place, it’s like it’s his thing, why isn’t the chief mobilizing people to do that?” lamented Felistas Chan’dimba a Secretary of Benjamin School Committee where they are building a teachers house using LDF funds.

The district launched the LDF project of constructing school blocks and teachers houses in July last year, which were supposed to be finalized three months after that, but due to delay in funding the projects are supposed to be finalized in February this year.

“Lack of funding affected the progress of the projects, but since the last chunk of the funding arrived in December we are hoping that every project finalizes in February,” said Oscar Kumwenda, Director of Public Works at Mchinji District Council.