Africa-Press – Zambia. President Hakainde Hichilema has pledged to find the money for the Zambia National Service to enable it to establish more Training Schools and Skills Centers.
President Hichilema said that ZNS training schools and skills will contribute to the country’s economic transformational and recovery agenda. And the Head of State has challenged ZNS to go beyond protecting the country’s territorial integrity and take Agriculture as a business.
The President said that ZNS should be aligned to government’s stratergies and objectives of turning around the economic fortunes of the country through enhanced Agricultural activities.
The President has urged ZNS to recruit skilled manpower that will make the service more productive and add value to their produce such as Maize. Mr. Hichilema said this at the (ZNS) Kafue Training School during a passout parade for 290 officer cadets of intake 04, 2020.
The President has also directed the Zambia National Service (ZNS) to help mitigate the effects of climate change by embarking on tree planting, adding that government will facilitate a robust support arrangement to ZNS and other units as a way of circumventing the effects of climate change which is affecting the global community.
Mr. Hichilema has further directed ZNS to initiate home grown solutions such as actively participating in the green energy area including afforestation of indigenous species which are able to survive harsh conditions and be able to address the rampant deforestation.
The president also stressed the need to save lives amidst the fourth wave of covid-19 which he says is seemingly not getting better. President Hichilema has appealed to the general citizenry to get vaccinated as vaccination is the critical element the country cannot underrate.
And, Defence Minister Ambrose Lufuma said the ministry will be the flagship of sustainable development in the country. Mr Lufuma said ZNS will soon start flooding the local market with mealie meal and maize bran. Mr Lufuma said that the ministry will continue to source for resources to conduct more recruitments.
Mr. Lufuma said the recruitment of the cadets was a challenge as they were many youths who desperately wanted to join the rank and file of ZNS, but it was not possible to employ all the youths who had right qualifications.
And ZNS- Commandant Lieutenant General Maliti Solochi has pledged to ensure that all virgin land under the care of the service is made productive. General Solochi said the service is also in the process of acquiring two high tech combined harvesters aimed at increasing production capacity at its various farms across the country.
Lieutenant General Solochi said that during the last farming season, the service planted 200,275 hectares of maize, 870 hectares of soybeans and 1,053 hectares of wheat against the backdrop of covid-19 challenges.
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