Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
President Edgar Lungu
The Zambia Direct Democratic Movement (ZDDM) says it is happy that President Edgar Lungu will take time to re-examine some clauses in the constitution bill presented to him before signing the bill into law.
ZDDM President Edwin Sakala says the constitution can change the country for better or worse if more thought is given to it such as even to answer questions such as what happens if the running mate dies and in whose interest has parliament deleted clauses which are key to not only development of democracy in Zambia but which could have enriched parliamentary contributions with real issues of concern to the people at grassroots.
Mr. Sakala notes that the Zambian parliament in its current form has failed to address many serious issues such as ensuring that workers retrenched more than 24 years ago under the Structural Adjustment Program-SAP get paid their terminal benefits noting that many of the affected workers have since died.
He says for many, the Zambian parliament is a total disappointment as it continues to fail to defend the land which continues to be sold to foreigners while the British created Cartel continues to corrupt the whole governance system.
He explains that the deleting of some clauses and inclusion of conditions such as the requirement of 1000 supporters is not only shutting the door of power and parliament to the poor and ordinary people but opening wide doors to foreign domination of the country and killing of the independence, jobs and modernization of Zambia because power will indeed remain a monopoly of foreign sponsored organizations and political parties.
Mr. Sakala says the deleted clauses could have restored the country’s independence because Zambians could have guarded jealously every inch of the nation and brought to an end tribal and regional politics where individual tribes want to rule the other 74 tribes and sentiments like those of Barotse and Umodzi Kumawa because each district would have been preoccupied with identifying their potentials as districts to develop and in the process created their own jobs in the rural areas.
He further states that as ZDDM it is painful for them to watch foreign powers fanning a culture of Zambians wasting precious time and energy on retrogressive politics of each one seeking self aggravating and some even fighting for tribal supremacy.