The Civil Society Constitution Agenda (CiSCA) has advised President Edgar Lungu to tread very carefully as regards the call for a commission of inquiry on privatisation.
CiSCA gave the advice after Lungu received petitions from the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) and other youth groups requesting the set up of the commission.
The president, it was learnt, assured them that a commission of inquiry will be set up to look into the privatisation process.
‘It is just a matter of time and the commission will be instituted. This matter is of great national interest’, he said.
‘It has been on people’s minds and discussions have been held in various places. I have also people pushing me on the subject matter but like I said the will of the people reigns supreme’.
However, CiSCA said the president should be more interested in solving the country’s economic problems.
‘We put it to President Lungu that instituting a privatisation commission of inquiry is not in the best interest of Zambia but a ploy to eliminate a formidable opponent in the name of Hakainde Hichilema’, the group said.
‘Let us heal this nation once and for all so that as we go to the 2021 elections we are all truly exercising our democratic right to hear freely from all who aspire to rule and for us to vote without anyone’s fear of security of the person that Zambia has had to go through at every election since the 2015 presidential by-elections’.
CiSCA says it is not convinced the 40,000 signatories in the YALI petition represent even remotely what would be considered public interest.
‘For instance, since there is a case in the High Court on privatisation and the High Court is at the same level as a commission of inquiry but without the former’s legal binding status, CiSCA urges the pro commission of inquiry on privatisation to hold off and wait for the outcome of the court case’.
‘We contend that it is wishful thinking, for the petitioners, to think that the commission of inquiry will not call witnesses from not only within but also outside our territory since the privatisation involved international buyers too.
‘The scope of this Commission of Inquiry is envisaged to be huge taking into account that evidence will straddle three decades and since a Commission of Inquiry is not a court hearing, it is not reasonably expected that the recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry will be acted upon by the court if this became necessary’.
Source: Zambia Watchdog
Photo source: Paul Kagame
