Maravi

Zambia is in constitutional mess - Oasis

Zambia is in constitutional mess - Oasis
By Bivan Saluseki
Monday July 09, 2007 [04:02]

THE Oasis Forum says Zambia is in a constitutional mess because of politicians taking the lead. But Minister of Justice George Kunda yesterday said the government did not want confrontation because some people had no agenda. Meanwhile, Kunda said the drafting of the Constitutional Conference Bill had advanced. Oasis Forum spokesperson Musa Mwenya yesterday said the consultative group had resolved that the Oasis Forum meets the Zambia Centre for Inter-party Democracy (ZCID) today though its members would do more of listening than talking.

"We plan to bring it home to ZCID that the current constitutional mess we are in is as a result of politicians taking a leading role in constitution making since independence. We plan to do a lot of listening," he said. "We plan to reiterate our position on the Constitution and the fact that we are more concerned about comprehensive review of the Constitution," he said. Mwenye said the ZCID agenda had not been tabled to the Oasis but it would be listening to ZCID during the meeting. He said the Oasis would stick to the Mung'omba Constitution Review Commission recommendations, which were made after visiting 150 constituencies, foreign countries and wide consultations.

"There is a basis for those recommendations. For now we stick to the Mung'omba recommendations and we will make it certain to them and defend the Mung'omba recommendations," said Mwenya. But Kunda said some people wanted to create tension in the country. "Those who want to concentrate on bickering and arguments just wanted to delay the process. Let us not delay the process. There are certain people in Zambia who want to create tension in the country because they think that they should have that sort of agenda. We want peace. Some of these people now have no agenda. There is peace, we don't want confrontation. It's no longer necessary. Let's move with the Constitutional Conference," he said.

Kunda said there should not be any differences even over the name because ZCID came up with a neutral term. He said others wanted a national indaba while some wanted a Constitutional Conference but meaning the same thing. "So the use of the term is irrelevant. We will provide legislation for this body. We can call it anything. Why don't we call it insaka but we shall call it National Constitutional Conference," he said. Earlier at a briefing, Kunda said in the next few days, he would commence the process of consulting stakeholders regarding the bill. "Once Cabinet approval is obtained, I intend to present the bill in the next sitting of Parliament," he said. Kunda said the objective of the bill was to establish the proposed Constitutional Conference, define its powers, structures, procedures, functions, composition and provide for the allocation of financial resources.

"The Constitutional Conference will undertake the process of examining, analyzing, debating and adopting by consensus contents of the proposed Constitution. Agreed constitutional provisions will thereafter be presented to Parliament for enactment while those provisions which require a referendum like the Bill of Rights in Part III of the Constitution will be put to a referendum," he said.

Kunda said as recommended by the Mung'omba CRC on page 788, the body created would have no legislative powers and would merely adopt the new constitution. Kunda also announced that Cabinet had approved the launch of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) process. Zambia acceded to the APRM on January 22nd, 2006. This is an African self-monitoring governance system, which requires a member state to voluntarily submit to an internal audit or national self-assessment of its political, economic, corporate and social economic governance systems.

Labels: CONSTITUTION, OASIS FORUM, ZCID

posted by MrK @ 2:43 AM