Kasama council reports progress on road rehabilitation

KASAMA — Kasama Municipal Council says a K11.4 million road rehabilitation programme is progressing on schedule, with one route finished and a second under way.

The works, funded through 2025 Constituency Development Fund (CDF) allocations from the Kasama Central and Lukashya constituencies, follow a stakeholders' engagement in which residents and traders helped the council rank the roads that matter most for reaching markets, clinics and government offices in Zambia's Northern Province capital. The programme gives Kasama residents a concrete, kilometre-by-kilometre standard to measure the council against, rather than a general promise of ongoing works.

Council Public Relations Manager Charity Chaiwila said the council convened that engagement before drawing up a schedule of works, road by road, rather than spreading the K11.4 million allocation thinly across the district. The approach has already delivered one completed route and put a second under active construction, Chaiwila said.

We had a stakeholder's engagement where priority roads were identified, and we developed a roadmap with stakeholders. So far, we have covered St Theresa Road, covering about nine kilometers, and we are currently working on Chiba Road, where we need to cover about seven kilometers.

— Charity Chaiwila, Council Public Relations Manager, Kasama Municipal Council, <a href="https://www.zanis.gov.zm/?p=4813">Zambia News and Information Services, 7 July 2026</a>

St Theresa Road, a nine-kilometre route, is complete and carrying traffic. Chiba Road, seven kilometres long, is now being graded, gravelled and compacted, according to the council. Chanda Mukulu Road, at nine kilometres, is scheduled next once Chiba Road is done. Together the three routes account for roughly 25 kilometres of urban and peri-urban road that the council had marked as priority repairs.

The Constituency Development Fund is Zambia's constituency-level infrastructure grant, and Kasama's two parliamentary seats each put K5.7 million of their 2025 allocation toward the road programme, the council said. Work commenced in June 2026, and the council said it had procured five pieces of road construction equipment for the programme, including a tipper truck, a bulldozer, a low-bed truck and a water bowser, to grade, gravel and compact the routes without leaning on hired contractors for every task.

The Kasama roadmap follows a pattern Kwacha News has tracked in CDF-funded works elsewhere this year, including the Tapo-Lulambo feeder road in Mongu, where roughly nine kilometres of a 40-kilometre target has been graded to all-weather gravel standard under a similar rural-roads push in Western Province. Councils across Zambia are increasingly publishing kilometre-by-kilometre progress on CDF roadworks as pressure grows for public accounts of how the fund is spent.

Background

Kasama is the provincial capital of Northern Province and the seat of Kasama District, about 856 kilometres north-east of Lusaka on the M1 road that links Mpika to Mbala and Mpulungu. The town's 2010 census population of 101,845 makes it the largest urban centre in Zambia's far north, and the TAZARA railway linking Zambia to Tanzania passes through the district. Kasama Municipal Council administers the town and its surrounding wards across the Kasama Central and Lukashya constituencies.

The Constituency Development Fund is the government's principal decentralisation tool, channelling money directly to all 156 constituencies for roads, classrooms, health posts and small-business grants rather than routing every project through a ministry in Lusaka. The Presidential Delivery Unit says the per-constituency allocation has risen from K1.6 million in 2021 to K40 million budgeted for 2026, a jump the government presents as evidence that local authorities can absorb larger sums as disbursement and reporting improve.

Kwacha News has also tracked how councils account for that money once it reaches the ground, including a Lusaka water project where a minister flagged contractor delays even as the work passed its halfway mark — part of Kwacha News's local coverage of service delivery across Zambia's provinces and councils.

What to watch

The next milestone is straightforward: whether Chiba Road's grading, gravelling and compaction finishes on the timeline the council has set, clearing the way for Chanda Mukulu Road to start. Kasama residents will also be watching whether the promised standard — all-weather surfaces that hold up once the rains return — holds beyond the dry season.

Ratepayers and CDF committee members in Kasama Central and Lukashya are due a further account of how the K11.4 million allocation was spent once the three roads are complete, standard practice for constituency-funded projects. Road delivery of this kind carries added weight nationally as Zambia heads toward a 13 August 2026 general election, when councillors and members of parliament in constituencies such as Kasama Central and Lukashya face voters partly on how CDF-funded infrastructure was delivered on the ground.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions readers have been asking since Kasama Municipal Council reported progress on its road rehabilitation programme. Short answers follow, drawn from the council's own account and national data on the Constituency Development Fund.

What is the Kasama road rehabilitation programme?

In short, it is a K11.4 million programme to grade, gravel and compact three priority roads in Kasama — St Theresa Road, Chiba Road and Chanda Mukulu Road — identified through a stakeholders' engagement between the council and residents. The answer, simply put, is that the council picked routes by need rather than spreading a fixed budget thinly, according to Council Public Relations Manager Charity Chaiwila.

How does the Kasama road programme get its funding?

The programme draws on the 2025 Constituency Development Fund, with Kasama Central Constituency and Lukashya Constituency each contributing K5.7 million. Data from the Presidential Delivery Unit shows the national per-constituency CDF allocation has climbed sharply since 2021, giving councils such as Kasama's larger sums to work with each budget cycle.

Why is Chiba Road different from St Theresa Road?

St Theresa Road, at nine kilometres, is complete and already carrying traffic. Chiba Road, seven kilometres long, is still being graded, gravelled and compacted, according to the council. The key is sequencing: Kasama Municipal Council is finishing one route before shifting its equipment — a bulldozer, a tipper truck, a low-bed truck and a water bowser among them — to the next.

Who is the Kasama road programme for?

The roads affect residents, traders and commuters who use St Theresa, Chiba and Chanda Mukulu roads to reach markets, clinics and government offices in Kasama. In other words, the immediate beneficiaries are people travelling within the town, while the wider constituencies gain a public account of how their 2025 CDF allocation was used.

What are the risks facing CDF-funded road projects like Kasama's?

Analysis of CDF-funded infrastructure across Zambia points to durable risks: rainy-season damage to newly graded gravel, equipment downtime once councils rely on their own machinery instead of contractors, and gaps between announced completion and on-site progress. Evidence from similar projects Kwacha News has covered reveals that public, kilometre-by-kilometre reporting — of the kind Kasama has now given — is itself one of the strongest safeguards against those risks, since it gives residents a fixed baseline to check against.

Sources

Kasama Municipal Council: remarks by Council Public Relations Manager Charity Chaiwila, Zambia News and Information Services, 7 July 2026. Constituency Development Fund allocation data: Presidential Delivery Unit, Constituency Development Fund overview.