Eastern Province permanent secretary Chanda Kasolo has advised civil servants to respect and work cordially with traditional leaders because they are important to national development.

Speaking when he met traditional leaders in Sinda district, who gave more land to government for developmental purposes, Kasolo said if a President could bow to a chief, civil servants had to follow suit.

“Our royal highnesess are ready to work with the government of the day because they want to see development, hence we need to utilise the land progressively so that they see the purpose of the giving us the land. Let’s work well with our chiefs, truly if the President can now and kneel before the chiefs to show respect then who are we to disrespect our chiefs? Let’s pay total respect to our chiefs, they are so important and we need to value them,” Kasolo said.

“Let’s take care of our chiefs, they shouldn’t be unhappy because I will not be PS forever, DC will not be there forever nor police officer in charge forever but our chiefs will remain there so there is need that we keep them well, we need to support them so that they have business ventures which will bring them capital which they can use to buy fuel rather than making them knock on DC or council chairperson office for help such as fuel.”

Kasolo said there must be no segregation between traditional leaders because chiefs were the same no matter which region they hailed from.

“Government is about order everywhere to which there must be no segregation or discrimination between chiefs in eastern and chiefs in Namwala all we are the same and we have to work and unity to promote unity and cooperation in our society,” he said.

And Kasolo asked council chairperson Michael Phiri and district commissioner Paradious Sakala to make use of the land which the chiefs had handed over so that it could bring revenue to the district.

And speaking on behalf of the traditional leaders, chieftainess Kawaza said their subjects wanted to see development on the land which they had offered.

“We want to inform you PS and your team that as per your request last time that we add more land to government for development purpose, for sure all of us chiefs we sat down and moved round our areas and we have extended the land from those points to which we believe it will be to your satisfaction. However, we are going to talk to our people but one thing you should know is that people will be convinced to move away from those fields only if they see development. We have added and council chairperson, council secretary and DC see to it that land is used progressively,” said Chieftainess Kawaza.