Kalomo task force to deal with bad influencers

The Kalomo Malaria Task Force (MATF) chairperson, Foster Nasilele has warned that his committee would not condone community leaders who influence the locals to frustrate government programmes that are aimed at improving their welfare.

Mr Nasilele observed that it was saddening that community leaders, who are supposed to be models in society, were the ones hinged on deliberately persuading people to rise against government interventions.

He was reacting to a report by the MATF yesterday where the entire Simwatachela community refused their houses to be sprayed against mosquitoes under the Indoor Residue Spraying (IRS) due to an influence of a named community leader.

The IRS team had to pack their kits after being threatened by the locals claiming most of their eligible children were not engaged to participate in the exercise and argued that only town grade 12 pupils were recruited.

“We shall not tolerate that kind of behaviour which has a high potential to frustrate such interventions which are meant to improve their well being and we have enough laws to bring sanity to Kalomo because other people might borrow such behaviour,“ Mr Nasilele charged.

The district targeted 12,000 households and managed to attain 82 per cent in the exercise in an effort to prevent malarial incidences.