Maravi

Kabimba holds Kunda responsible for constitution failure

Kabimba holds Kunda responsible for constitution failure
By Patson Chilemba
Thu 12 May 2011, 04:01 CAT

GEORGE Kunda must be held accountable for the failure of the constitution-making process because he wanted to make a constitution that would suit his and the MMD’s interests, says Lusaka lawyer Wynter Kabimba.

And Kabimba, who is also opposition PF national secretary, said the injustice of Director of Public Prosecutions Chalwe Mchenga cannot be allowed to continue.

Endorsing Law Association of Zambia president Musa Mwenye’s remark that someone in government should be held accountable for the constitution-making process failure - a process on which over K200 billion taxpayers money was wasted, Kabimba said Vice-President Kunda failed to listen to the views of the people by bulldozing the constitution-making process so that his and the MMD’s interests could be guaranteed.

“There is no doubt that they again wanted to tailor the constitution to suit the MMD. There is no doubt about that. This again was not going to be the people’s constitution. It was going to be an MMD constitution,” he said.

Kabimba said something should be done over the K200 billion which was wasted on the futile process.

“What does the government financial regulations say? If you misuse government money you should be surcharged. That is what the regulations say, civil service financial regulations or public service financial regulations say you must be surcharged for that misuse,” Kabimba said.

“In other words all of George Kunda’s gratuity must go back to the people of Zambia in form of a surcharge. He must be surcharged for that uncalled for expenditure because it means even as he was pursuing that, his intention was not to do the right thing.”

Kabimba said Vice-President Kunda had carried forward the lies which started during late president Levy Mwanawasa’s reign.

He said the government had announced then that they would repeal the 1996 Constitution through the Willa Mung’omba Constitutional Review Commission (CRC).

Mwenye last Monday demanded that someone in government be held accountable over the constitution-making process failure.

He said his personal views on the matter, which he issued in 2006 and 2007, were that the process of the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) was doomed to fail.

“The reason why I said what I said at the time was because of the infusion of partisan interests into an otherwise national undertaking. At the time I proposed that for the process to be successful the draft constitution adopted by a broadly representative organ should only be submitted to Parliament after it has been approved by the people in a Referendum,” Mwenye said.

“I suggested at the time that since the people were, for lack of a better term, the appointers of the legislators, they should reserve for themselves the right to directly approve the Constitution in a Referendum after which their agents had no choice but to pass the document as approved.”

Mwenye said what he warned would occur had now actually happened.

“My view is that someone must be held accountable for not listening to the views of the people. The back stops at the government’s table. So it is up to the government to tell us exactly who should be held accountable within their ranks,” he said.

Mwenye said it was a tragedy that the nation had wasted billions of money on a failed process, saying the nation could ill-afford to waste so much money.

On the government’s announcement that they would reintroduce the constitution bills which were shot down by Parliament if they were re-elected into office, Mwenye said this was a process that was doomed to fail.

“You can’t reinstate a fatal process. What government should be saying is that perhaps; ‘we need to come to a place where we can reconstruct what the views of the people are with regard to this constitution, after which we should submit to the Referendum after which we should talk about taking this issue to Parliament',” said Mwenye.

“All of us who may have participated in NCC despite clear warnings should re-examine our consciences on what part we have played in plundering the national resources, or wastage of national resources.”

And Kabimba said Mchenga must go because he lacked integrity by betraying the cause of the people.

“There is no way you are going to have a credible criminal justice system if the DPP is compromised or appears to be compromised. You can’t have a credible criminal justice system. That is what the people of Zambia have been crying about,” said Kabimba.

“Failure to appeal most of these plunder cases have not convinced the people of Zambia that that failure is in the interest of the people.”

Labels: CHALWE MCHENGA, CONSTITUTION, GEORGE KUNDA, NCC, WYNTER KABIMBA

posted by MrK @ 4:35 AM