“ZAMBIA NEEDS EMPOWERMENT, NOT A BIGGER, HUNGRIER GOVERNMENT ” DORA SILIYA .
Former Cabinet Minister and veteran parliamentarian Hon. Dora Siliya has launched a no-holds-barred critique of the proposed Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Bill, 2025, warning that the changes signal a dangerous shift toward bloated governance while ordinary citizens continue to choke under economic pressure and poor service delivery.
In a scathing write-up titled “Minding My Father’s Country,” Siliya describes the ongoing constitutional amendment campaign as a thinly veiled power grab that threatens to reverse Zambia’s hard-won democratic gains. Her target: the proposed increase of parliamentary constituencies from 156 to 211 a move she says will only expand government at the taxpayer’s expense without addressing deep-rooted developmental failure.
“We must ask: what are we trying to cure?” she wrote. “If smaller constituencies equaled more development, rural Zambia would be paradise by now.”
Siliya brutally exposes what she sees as hypocrisy in the justification behind the move using development as a smokescreen while ignoring the failure to decentralize actual power and financial control to the people.
“Why not turn the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) into a Ward Development Fund (WDF)? Let us stop pretending that MPs are the solution to grassroots poverty,” she declared.
She didn’t mince words when attacking the government’s reluctance to empower local communities:
“You cannot claim to be fixing the Constitution while tightening your grip at the top. This is not reform. This is consolidation of power. And worse, it’s expensive.”
The former Petauke MP challenged the logic behind further empowering MPs many of whom, like councillors, only need a Grade 12 certificate to contest office while sidelining the very people they claim to represent.
“The argument that councillors are too uneducated to manage development funds is weak and arrogant. People say the same thing about MPs.”
In an audacious proposal, Siliya offered an alternative that would disrupt Zambia’s entrenched political power structures:
“After 60 years of independence, real empowerment would mean giving every 25-year-old Zambian citizen with a Grade 12 certificate one acre of titled land. Let them build. Let them farm. Let them create wealth.”
“That’s nation-building. Not more MPs, more salaries, and more allowances for people who sit in Lusaka while villages starve.”
She accused the government of pushing constitutional changes without the usual nationwide consultations, ignoring past traditions of public engagement that ensured legitimacy and inclusivity.
“This sacred process is being hijacked by a few with narrow interests. It is a betrayal of our collective ambition a slap in the face to democracy,” she said.
The 2025 Bill, which emerged amid whispers of a “secret” draft committee, has drawn criticism for prioritizing electoral changes including proportional representation and delimitation without first fixing glaring flaws in the 2016 Constitution, including gaps in judicial hierarchy, candidate nomination rules, and non-functional commissions.
Siliya, who has participated in three constitutional processes spanning 2007 to 2021, ended her commentary with a chilling reminder:
“The Constitution is our soul. It reflects who we are and who we dare to become. We cannot let it be cheapened into a political convenience.”
June 4, 2025
©️ KUMWESU
Ba Dora while we appreciate your views. You told us you had left politics.
Is this you now coming back? If so; ma Politicians wenye…when its time to leave leave. Otherwise you just start becoming a detraction. Your outbursts are a reflection of the private conversations you have been having otherwise you would not have left politics if you still had something to say or do?
You madam are another selfserving individual pantu in you constituency in all the time you were MP or Minister, the place is still a bush.
Let young people aspire to these offices as these are now overtures to what you seek. A Public office.
You got your medal in recognisition for whatever they gave it to for. That doesnt mean we want you back.