A CHONGWE woman has named her day-old baby after area member of parliament Sylvia Masebo in honour of the help she rendered after her 28-year-old husband died in an accident which claimed three other lives.

And Masebo has appealed to Home Affairs Minister Jack Mwiimbu to review the Chongwe checkpoint, saying it was not in order for motorists to spend an hour on the road.

During the burial of the four deceased persons, Friday, James Mulenga’s family representative announced that the baby had been named Sylvia because the family was deeply humbled by the Health Minister’s help.

The other deceased persons are Augustine Kanchele, 41, Tony Phiri, 31 and Geoffrey Lunda, 30.

In her address, Masebo said she was now the baby’s mother and grandmother.

“What I can say as a member of this community is that life is short. Because even when you die when you are 78 years old, it doesn’t mean that your time was long, even that is short. Because we always want to be with our family members, even your grandparents, you always want them around. So for that reason, we are very sad to lose young people because us the elderly people we always look to our young people to come and look after us. Worse, the one who has left a baby who is a day old. You see what God does? That is life. Now today, I have been given a burden, my name has been given to that baby, I am now her mother and grandmother. That’s the responsibility I have been given,” Masebo said, as she also appealed to the community to assist each other in resolving problems.

“These who have left us have left behind some children, some parents. As a community, what are we doing to support them? Because this is a disaster, it is unexpected. When they left home, they had so many plans and aspirations for the day, but all those things have been left unfinished. My appeal is that let us continue helping them and take up some of the problems they have left behind. Let us help.”

She thanked President Hakainde Hichilema for easing the burden on families who experience tragedies like losing loved ones in road traffic accidents.

“Myself as member of parliament, to the families who have lost their loved ones, if there is anything that we can do as government beyond what we have done today, please feel free. Our offices here are many; councillor, DC, Mayor, and also the MP’s office. Even if you don’t physically see the MP, that’s why government created an office and employed people there so that any time you want to bring your problems, that MP is there,” Masebo said.

“I would like to thank the President, Hakainde Hichilema, because he has really helped us, this funeral was huge. In the past, we used to have a lot of funerals but for the first time, under President HH, he has declared that whenever there is a disaster, government has to help. That’s why it has now become easy, even me as an MP, it was lighter on me because government helped a lot. And government will continue to do this. So thank you to President HH and government for helping the people of Chongwe.”

Meanwhile, Masebo appealed to Mwiimbu to review the Chongwe checkpoint.

“The last thing I can say is to plead with the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Home Affairs [Jack] Mwiimbu so that he can help us. That police check point along Great East Road before Chongwe is notorious. We feel the congestion is too much on the road; people are spending about one hour just to bypass that checkpoint. So we ask the Minister of Home Affairs to review this because people are not supposed to stay in traffic inconvenienced for one hour. Some time back, I would only spend 15 minutes on the road from Lusaka to Chongwe, I used to come for meetings every month but now, it takes one hour. Some of these things are what cause accidents because after that, people start speeding because they are late,” said Masebo.