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Lifuka welcomes NGO bill deferment

Lifuka welcomes NGO bill deferment
By Noel Sichalwe
Tuesday August 21, 2007 [04:00]

Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) president Reuben Lifuka has welcomeded the government's decision to defer the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) bill from Parliament. Lifuka has since commend the Committee on Legal Affairs, Governance, Human Rights and Gender Matters and government for listening to the views of stakeholders on key concerns raised and recommending for the withdrawal of the bill.

"We feel that time should now be devoted to establish on how government can strengthen institutions such as the Registrar of Societies instead of trying to create other parallel institutions," Lifuka said. "We wish to state that in the current format that the bill was put, it made it impossible to relate how it would enhance transparency and accountability of non governmental organisations when most of the sections were preoccupied with controlling and curtailing the freedom of expression space of such interest groups," Lifuka said.

"We feel as TIZ that consensus in a democracy like Zambia is very necessary and key. We feel as TIZ that the fundamental freedom of association and assembly enshrined in the constitutions that guarantee such freedom should not be tampered with." Lifuka however, expressed concern over reports that on the evening of August 14, 2007, a group of 60 Zimbabwean civil society activists were refused entry into Zambia without any official reasons and that two passports of the activist were stamped prohibited immigrant.

He said it was unimaginable that such an action was taken under a backdrop of President Mwanawasa's public pronouncement on the need to promote dialogue between citizens and political leaders.

"We find this totally amazing and unacceptable in a growing democracy such as Zambia that our own immigration authorities can go to such an extent to deny activists entry when our political leaders are talking about dialogue," he said. He called on President Mwanawasa to investigate the embarrassing incident and institute corrective measures in order not to send wrong signals to the outside world that the Immigration Department was politicised. Lifuka said the last challenge was with Minister of Home Affairs Lieutenant General Ronnie Shikapwasha to thoroughly deal with the issue to ensure that Zambian hospitality was not misunderstood as a result of a few disgruntled officials.

Labels: NGO BILL

posted by MrK @ 4:01 AM