Civil servants wishing to be MPs should resign a year before an election – NCC

Civil servants wishing to be MPs should resign a year before an election – NCC
Written by Katwishi Bwalya and Margaret Mtonga
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 5:30:20 AM

THE legislative committee of the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) has adopted a proposal that workers in the public service wishing to stand as parliamentary candidates should resign from their position a year before an election.

But Federation of Free Trade Unions of Zambia (FFTUZ) president Joyce Nonde said the adopted proposal by the legislative committee of the NCC for civil servants to resign a year before getting into politics was unfair.

During the ongoing sittings last week, the delegates resolved that all public service workers who wanted to venture into politics should resign from the civil service a year before they are adopted by their political parties.

Members of the committee said that would allow government programmes to be implemented without any hindrances from people with political ambitions.

Committee chairperson Mutale Nalumango guided the members that people who would be affected in the category include those from the public service, defence forces and companies formed under a statutory body.

After extensive debates, some members supported the idea that workers should resign three years before being adopted by their political parties as candidates while others wanted the three years to run up to election day or the day of filing in of nominations.

The members argued that allowing public service workers to resign for a period of one year would help reduce abuse of public resources for their political gains.

The matter was subjected to a vote and members eventually agreed for a one-year period.

But in an interview, Nonde said every law that the NCC was addressing should be fair to every Zambian and not a punishment.

"Every law must be fair to every side," Nonde said. "If you say people who wished to stand as parliamentary candidates should resign from their position a year before an election date, that will disadvantage the workers because they will stop taking part in active contributions to the development of the country," she said.

Nonde said the adopted proposal was too harsh on the public servants as that would infringe on their benefits because they would get less money by retiring one year earlier.

"For example, no person would want to retire at 30 years. The legislative committee should be fair in the proposals that they adopted, because I don't think a 30-year-old would want to resign and participate in parliamentary candidature, that's why I’m saying the adopted proposal does not make sense at all. Those deliberating on the NCC should rethink about the proposal they have adopted," Nonde said. "The composition of the NCC is really bad as they have left out the commissioners who should have been there to give them guidance on this adopted proposal. The deliberations at the NCC are not good enough because those people are busy talking to themselves. I even doubt if at all that composition will give us a good constitution that represents the wish of the Zambian people.

"The chances of NCC giving us a good constitution are very slim because those people in NCC are state actors."