Electoral Expert MacDonald Chipenzi says President Edgar Lungu must, with immediate effect, disband the Commission of Inquiry on Voting Patterns and Electoral Violence because its mandate has expired.
According to the Statutory Instrument No. 72 of 2016 that gave birth to the Commission of Inquiry late last year, its lifespan was for 120 days which have since expired.
It was expected within these 120 days to complete its work and handover the report to the President.
Mr Chipenzi said it will be illegal and against the dictates of the Statutory Instrument for the Commission of Inquiry and its commissioners to exist beyond the stipulated timeframe in the Instrument.
He challenged President Lungu to tell the nation whether he has issued another Statutory Instrument to extend the life of the Commission of Inquiry and at what cost to the country.
“On what basis would the Inquiry exist beyond its lifespan and how credible would its work be which would be done after the expiry of its mandated? The credibility of the findings and the entire report would be rendered illegal, questionable and an academic exercise in the public court,” he said.
“It is clear that the Inquiry has lamentably failed to attract enough witnesses as it is fact that people have resisted to be wooed to support a Commission of Inquiry bent at violating their constitutional right to vote, associate and the right to a secret of the vote.”
Mr Chipenzi said it is reasonable that the money being spent on the 15 commissioners who are currently gallivanting around the country and spending huge sums of taxpayers’ money on lodging in expensive hotels and fuel be channelled to needy areas such as uplifting the lives of persons with disability and also stocking hospitals and health centres with necessary drugs and essentials.
“Further, President Lungu would better learn from his Malawian counterpart who only appointed a 3-member Commission of Inquiry on the maize-gate scandal involving Zambia and that country, gave it less days than ours to finish its work and submit its report which it has since done and the Malawian president has acted upon it based on its recommendations. In our case, 15-member commission of inquiry which was given 120 days has failed to conclude its work on time. Where is efficiency and the prudence in the utilization of the country’s meagre financial resources? Mr Chipenzi asked.
If five constitutional court judges would fail to give guidance on how to go about the presidential petition case in 14, even if you give them a 100 year some of the Zambian judges will still fail to come up with something conclusive. It’s decaying justice system, this commission of enquiry actually infringes on people’s rights to vote their choice of leaders, why should someone’s voting pattern be questioned if a vote is supposed to be a secret, these are issues that should be taken to the Constitutional courts and not issues to do with lungu’s illegibility for 2021,what is that minister of national guidance doing, is she not supposed to give guidance to the nation on issues like this, or she just sit on that nice office chair busy kushulula chabe.
Why do they even call it commission of inquiry on voting pattern why not just call it commission of inquiry on why southern, northwest and western province voted for upnd
It should have been commission of enquiry on why notherners, muchingans and luapulans have openly vowed never to vote for a southern, northwesterner, westerner, this is an open secret just go out to these northern areas and conduct a survey, you will be shocked some reasons they will be giving you, even the late great Andy K, was getting 0 votes in some wards in this region, for my lozi friends it’s even worse they just openly say aba lozi tababa bwino, i just wonder how mama wina keeps up with them.
Just say UPND member supporter Chipenzi . Who doesn’t know that UPND has never been comfortable with the commission?
The whole election was a sham. When everyone saw the malpractices country wide by pf. Upto now we don’t know what happened to lungus Ugandan friend caught at secure premises of ecz cooking up figures. G12 certificate were not available and yet pf government were forcing announcement of results. Lungu is not and will never be a president. He is an illegal rat. Greetings from stormy united Kingdom
why look for the living among the dead? who doesn’t know what the causes are? Just in case u don’t know, Chama & Mwila are the big pieces. Essau Chulu & Priscilla are the icing sugar on this cake. one wonders how such people can still hold their positions with heads high. God help us
a sham that is what this whole thing is. people are being paid allowances for doing nothing and as usual there will be no feed back just as in the cases of the ACC on the big fish. plus have the ministers paid back the illegal salaries and should they not be charged with contempt of court?