Background
John Chiponda was born on July 1, 1923, at Nyamundela village near Chipata in the Eastern Province.
John Chiponda was born on July 1, 1923, at Nyamundela village near Chipata in the Eastern Province.
Educated locally, then at Mwami Mission School to matriculation standard. In 1936 he passed his examination as a medical assistant at Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.
After four years working at Salisbury General Hospital he went to the University of South Africa from 1940 to 1941. In 1942 he entered Fort Hare University College and graduated with a BSc in Pharmacy in 1945. He worked in South Africa until 1958, when he was expelled.
Returning home, he became an assistant pharmacist in the Ministry of Health from 1958 to 1962. For the next two years he was constantly involved in political work for the United National Independence Party. In the independence government he was Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Health from 1964 to 1967, then Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Labour from 1967 to 1969. He was Minister of State for the North-western Province from 1969 to 1970, when he was appointed Minister of State for the Southern Province. Eighteen months later he was made one of the Ministers of State in President Kaunda’s Office.
A graduate pharmacist, trained in South Africa, whose experience of living under apartheid laws for 18 years has left a deep mark. An Easterner whose tolerance and breadth of vision made him a highly respected minister in the North-western Province and the Southern Province. He knows over a dozen African languages and is a strictly brought up Christian in the Seventh Day Adventist Church.