‘I balance politics with music’

NOEL IYOMBWA writes

Tell us about yourself
MY NAMES are Matthew Ngosa. I am a family man married to Tasila Ngoma with two children, both girls, Tokozile and Temwani Ngosa.
I am Madido Ward 19 Councilor in Chongwe Constituency under the ruling Patriotic Front (PF).

I was elected in the 2016 general elections. Since then I have been busy working with the community and getting to know my new role.
What inspired you to go into politics?
I think I would say it’s something I really had so much interest in. Wanting to know current affairs, knowing what challenges people are facing.

Previously, I used to live in Garden and I used to see some challenges that people were facing. So when I moved to Madido area I realised that the people of the area were lacking representation at local government level.
Because of the love of politics from childhood I knew that I could make a difference because politics is for a person with the heart for the people.

How do you manage to juggle between politics and music?
Being a councillor is a part-time job. It’s not like being a member of Parliament where it’s a full-time job. So I manage to do other things because as a councillor I can even respond to issues on the phone.
And being a musician gave me more advantage to win the elections, if it wasn’t for music, I think wouldn’t have won, because my music career made me sellable.

Music has to do with people when we produce music we speak to the people. It involves a lot of touching base with fans. Same applies with being a politician but in political arena you have to be humble there is nothing like being a celebrity.

What are some of the achievement you have scored in your ward?
My ward is quiet young, it’s a ward that was perceived to belong to Munali and Ngwerere in 2016 ECZ thought it was imperative to create a new ward.

People were misplaced, they had no representation so when we came into office, we faced a lot of challenges because it had no representation, so having into office in a new ward it was quiet challenging in terms development because it was new ward which is the last one because we have 19 wards.

In 2005 the party in power which is MMD empowered the youths with the land so most of area was completely sub divided. This started small but grew were by we have thousands of people and the council were not involved in planning. So when got into office we had no idea where to put roads and other amenities.

But now I can proudly say that we have started having roads in some areas. Most of the areas have gotten share of the Road Development Agency road projects.

We had no tarmacs, but now Ndeke and kwangwena areas have 15 to 16 kilometers of tarmac.

After the announcement by his excellence President Edgar Lungu that people should be given title deeds, we have started empowering the people with title deeds and for the first time people in the area will have land titles after staying for more than 15 years without titles all this made possible with my hard working member of parliament Japhat Mwakalombe.

What are some of the challenges you are facing in terms of developing your ward?
It’s an area which had no ward before; we have challenges with a place to put up social amenities meaning that we had to start from the scratch.

Water reticulation is a major challenge in the area, people depend on bore holes
What are some of the future development you intend to bring in the ward?
After the completion of roads, we intend to start the construction of a police post and a clinic in the ward.
As I said earlier that we have challenges with water reticulation, we are trying to push if Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company can connect us with treated water because as it stands now, people depend on shallow wells making it a danger because they can contract water born diseases.

What are your future political aspirations?
At the moment am very much comfortable where iam, it’s like going to school you have to start from grade seven.

I need to learn from the people who are already ahead of me, people like his excellence the president Edgar Lungu,thearea MP,the ministers and Secretary General of the PF in order to be a good leader that people would be proud of, but I know God has a lot for me hence I don’t want to rush things.