Laura Miti writes….
The Minister of Justice was all over the news proudly claiming massive turnout to the Mushabati Technical Committee on the Constitution.
Did not know whether to be sad or annoyed.
A massive turnout for a mostly unannounced 2 days sitting per district. The first day was reserved for traditional leaders.
Today, the sham was worse. All councils were asked to host online submissions. The Commitee groups still sat in the provincial capital, receiving submissions from all districts.
Let’s take Eastern Province for an example. It has 15 districts other than Chipata. Citizens were to head to their respective councils to make submissions.
So, if you were 2nd on the queue in your district, you were really 16th because you had to wait until the first in each district had their turn.
We won’t even go into how many people in vast districts could get to the council and be coherent while talking to a screen, probably for the first time in their lives.
The disrespect for citizens is outstanding.
Government has not even pretended this is not about laundering Bill 7.
I wish they would at least not rub the insult in, by making ridiculous statements like – there is a massive turn out.
This bill is crucial for a user-friendly parliament in the second term.
So where is the evil within the content of bill 7 ?
I hear loud condemnation, but no one is pointing out exactly where the illegality or criminality is.
Eishi, we are in the same Shoes and to make things worse I don’t like reading so aaaaah.
What things need or deserve amendment in the current constitution? Quite a number actually. Why then should citizens be limited to only what is in Bill 7? I personally find this troubling. It’s as much my constitution as the government’s. If I think a certain part of the constitution deserves amendment, I ought to be free to suggest it.
The goverment at the moment does’t want to remove everything that is wrong for now. It has gone for the obvious non contentious issues which was ananymously agreed on by all the parties. However, because the oppositions only song in parliament is no, and then the NGO’s, the catholic clergy join in the chorus without naming a single proposal that is wrong but just rejecting everything without a reason. They are incapable of resolving the chaos in their party starting from 2021. Now they are telling Zambians that there is something wrong with Bill 7, while the have failed to resolve a simple leadership issue in their party. In their wisdom they are asking Zambians to trust them to run the country while every individual in their party wants to become president at any cost. Zambians this is not the time to be comprensant, Zambia doesn’t need a repeat of PF and it’s collective of alliance partners. The PF told Zambians that, only PF knows what Zambia wants. Everyone knows when they left goverment they ruined every fabric govermnment instutions and the legal system.