Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
US Ambassador to Zambia Eric Schultz has called for consensus by all stakeholders on which clauses in the final draft constitution government should table for amendment before the 2016 general election.
Speaking when he featured on a special interview on QFM this morning, Mr Schultz says government’s approach to present amendments of non contentious clauses in Parliament is the correct one, but that it is important that such a process is transparent.
Mr Schultz says there is need for government to dialogue with all the different stakeholders and indentify which elements of the draft constitution should be passed through parliament ahead of the 2016 general election and which ones should be subjected to a referendum.
He notes that it will be in the best interest of the country as a whole that all the political elements in Parliament agree on the clauses to be presented by Government.
And Ambassador Schultz says the US Embassy in Lusaka would be willing to engage Washington and seek additional funds if need arose to help fund the holding of the referendum on the constitution.
He however says the United States would not pay all the costs associated with the constitution referendum, but would only contribute a small percentage