KAMFINSA PF member of parliament Christopher Kang’ombe has urged those in political leadership to take a more central role in COVID-19 sensitisation programmes.

In an interview, Kang’ombe said he would urge his colleagues to join hands in raising awareness on the pandemic.

“I have high confidence in the technocrats that are supposed to run with this process. The officers at the council under public health, the officers under DMH, which is the office of the district medical health. Those are already doing programmes which are ongoing, I think for the last two years or so, on Covid response. But I think it will be important that those of us in political leadership take a more central role in helping with sensitisation. I think you will see a lot of input from my office and I will whisper to my colleagues, the civic leaders, to join hands as we try and raise awareness over this issue. Especially that the numbers from your report are now going up. Because why there appears to [have] been less information about Covid is that the cases went down, so maybe everyone assumed the cases have reduced, let’s see how best we can handle it differently,” said Kang’ombe.

“I just think that I have had too much on my plate. Maybe we have not done enough in terms of sensitisation on Covid. I think what I need to do is sit down with Ministry of Health because I know there is already a local response, theirs is already a response from government on how they are handling Covid. Maybe that’s how you may have noticed I have not done adequately in that area because I assumed we already have officers from Ministry of Health, we already have officers from public health council. My understanding was that they were already doing a good job, but I think if political leadership is needed to raise awareness, I will get a report from them on how they are doing so that twishibe apa kwingilila (we know where to enter from). But basically, I assumed that the technocrats are doing a very good job.”