Times Reporter
6 April 2004
THE Zambia National Tourist Board (ZNTB) is investigating a Lusaka-based tour operator who failed to provide services paid for by seven tourists for the Kuomboka ceremony.
The seven tourists, among them a chief executive and marketing manager were on Saturday left in the cold by a travel agent who failed to provide services to the tourists who had paid for the Kuomboka tour package.
The tour package included a boat ride to and from the flooded Lealui palace to witness the departure of the Litunga, the Lozi paramount chief for Limulunga, accommodation, food and transport around Mongu and to Limulunga.
The tourists, most of them foreign, missed the royal departure as they set about making their own boat arrangements to get to Lealui.
Zambia National Tourist Board chief executive Charity Lumpa confirmed the board was handling the matter.
"We have received complaints from a group of tourists who paid a travel agent for the Kuomboka tour package and so far we have established that the agent failed to provide the services paid for and we are pursuing the matter," said Ms Lumpa.
Ms Lumpa said that at one point the ZNTB vehicle was used to move the stranded tourists from town to the harbour.
She said that apart from inconveniencing the tourists, the conduct is likely to paint a bad picture of Zambia's tourism industry .
"We will verify the registration status of the agency in Lusaka and appropriate action will be taken because this amounts to obtaining money by false pretences," she said.
ZNTB marketing manager Tamara Gondwe-Scott said that such conduct made the board's work difficult because instead of selling the good image of Zambia, ZNTB would have to start cleaning up the mess.
"We can't afford to spend money on cleaning up the country's image which is being messed up by unscrupulous agents. We need to move forward," she said.
And a tourist who declined to be identified but promised to lodge a formal complaint with the ZNTB said that the lunch coupons issued to them by the agent were not honoured by the hotel hosting them and the group had to spend more money on food.
The tourists who flew on the scheduled Zambian Airways special Kuomboka flight were met at the airport on Saturday by the agent of the tour operator and driven to a hotel where he said that the services would be provided. However the hotel management expressed ignorance of the arrangement.
Further investigations by the Times revealed that the arrangements were made between the travel agency and the son of the proprietor of the hotel without the consent of his father.
And when questioned, the proprietor said that he became aware of the situation on Thursday when he got a fax message from the travel agent informing his son that they would send the money for the services the hotel was to render through a Standard Chartered Bank account in Mongu.
However the money was never remitted by Saturday which made it impossible for accommodation and other arrangements to be made.
"I had to use my reputation to get them a place to stay late in the night because we could not accommodate them in my hotel as all the rooms were taken," said the hotel proprietor.
Meanwhile, a Government official has warned that the floods situation being experienced in Western Province is likely to worsen once rain water from Angola and Lukulu district reaches the Barotse plains.
Senanga District Commissioner Fabian Musialela disclosed this on Sunday when Secretary to the Cabinet Leslie Mbula failed to reach Kalonga in Senanga after discovering that the Senanga-Kalonga road connecting Senanga and Sesheke had been washed away.
He said the floods were likely to worsen and so would the damage that would be caused.
"Water, especially from Lukulu which normally originates from Angola is still coming. So, we expect the floods to actually increase," he said.
He explained that although the plain floods in the rain season, a lot of water passing through Lukulu on its way from Angola normally reached the plain towards the end of the rainy season.
The province experienced a similar case last year when the floods rose eight metres above the ground just two days after commemoration of the Kuomboka.
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