President Edgar Lungu says he will not shy away from creating new districts because he wants people in rural areas to benefit from infrastructure development.

Speaking when he commissioned 10 newly built medium low cost housing units in Chembe District yesterday, President Lungu said he had directed Minister of Local Government Vincent Mwale to consider areas which could be turned into districts.

“When we said we would increase the number of districts, they were mocking us. But today, everyone in Zamiba has acknowledged that creating new districts is critical to our country because it brings services closer to our people in line with our decentralization policies and this in turn promotes to rural development and reduces rural to urban migration. We cannot talk about decentralization in the absence of decent shelter and it is for this reason that government has prioritized the provision of quality housing units as one of the key incentives to attract qualified and experienced employees to come and work in the rural areas,” President Lungu said.

“We will therefore not shy away from creating new districts. Going forward, I have given direction to the Minister of Local Government to see what new districts we can create to enable our people in the rural areas to benefit from the infrastructure development we intend to put in place.”

And speaking at the ground breaking ceremony of the Kawambwa- Mporokoso road project earlier, the Head of State said he expected all infrastructure projects that government was embarking on to be of high quality.

“We are all aware of the huge expenditure that Government is making on the construction of roads and related infrastructure such as bridges. We expect a Maximum return on the investment. I do not expect substandard roads and other infrastructure,” said President Lungu.