Zambia has approved a policy that would guide the country’s implementation of its nuclear programme, a government spokesperson announced on Tuesday.
Dora Siliya said the approval was given by the East African country’s cabinet.
Chief government spokesperson Siliya said although the government had been applying nuclear science and technology for development since 1969, the country had no nuclear policy to guide the utilisation of nuclear science and technology.
Siliya in a statement after a cabinet meeting said the National Nuclear Policy and its implementation plan would strengthen the legal, institutional, and operational framework of nuclear science and technology in the country.
“The absence of the policy has limited the country’s realisation of benefits from nuclear technologies.
“This policy is therefore, needed to provide a broad and robust legal, regulatory and human resource platform that will ensure the country derives maximum benefits from nuclear technologies.
“Zambia has come up with a nuclear programme that will see the Southern African nation constructing a Centre for Nuclear Science and Technology as well as the construction of a nuclear power plant.’’
She said that the Centre for Nuclear Science and Technology would have a research reactor for the production of medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancers, a gamma irradiator for food preservation, and medical product sterilisation.
