A senior traditional leader in Zambia has verbally attacked the country’s government for prioritising the electrification of cell towers in his chiefdom at the expense of local people.

Earlier this year, the Zambian government awarded a contract to construct 169 mobile towers to China’s Huawei Technologies in underserviced rural areas in Zambia.

The first tower was officially launched in April this year by the country’s vice president Dr. Guy Scott (pictured above).

But senior Chief Nsokolo, of the Mambwe people in the Northern Province, has said he is disappointed that the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) has given priority to powering up the mobile towers while local people remain unconnected to the national grid.

The traditional leader said in a statement, released by his personal assistant Jeff Kapembwa, that he is angered by the situation.

“His royal highness is incensed that despite the government’s pledge and commitment to electrify palaces of the traditional leaders, the REA has gone ahead to provide electricity to less important towers installed in the chiefdom,” Nsokolo said.

The traditional leader said efforts to seek redress from the north provincial leadership have failed to resolve the matter.

However, rural areas in Zambia are also severely underserved by mobile networks.

A 2012 report by Wireless Intelligent said that Zambia has more than 5 million people who are not subscribed to mobile communication services: most of them live in isolated rural areas.

All three of Zambia’s mobile networks-MTN, Zamtel and Airtel are planned to share the towers being constructed by Huawei as part of the Zambia Information and Communication (ZICTA)’s ‘Universal Access Project’.

The construction of the towers is expected to be completed by October this year.