Independence To The Present Day
| 1961–83 | XVII Paul Kanyembo Lutaba |
| 1983–98 | XVIII Munona Chinyanta |
| 1998– | XIX Paul Mpemba Kanyembo Kapale Mpalume |
In 1964 Northern Rhodesia became independent Zambia. For a time, chiefs saw their influence overshadowed by party politics and the civil administrations, though in 1985 Mwata Kazembe XVIII was appointed District Commissioner in Kawambwa and later, Provincial Political Secretary.
The ‘fish and labour’ economic booms in the forties, fifties and sixties gave way to recessions and stagnation from the mid-seventies onwards as fish catches declined, Copperbelt employment contracted and national problems had an effect. However, the construction in the late sixties of the 'Zambia Way', a road connecting Mansa to Nchelenge-Kashikishi through Mwansabombwe, and its surfacing and linking to Kawambwa, Samfya and Serenje over the next two decades, has funnelled trade through Mwansabombwe, the population of which has risen to around 50,000.
The Mwata Kazembe chieftainship has endured and though originating in war and being surrounded by countries that have experienced much conflict, it has presided over peace on the eastern shores of the Luapula and Lake Mweru for more than a century.
Read more about this topic: Kazembe
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