Justice Minister Given Lubinda has granted the Forum a three days extension.
The Forum was supposed to officially end today and will now go up to Saturday 11th May 2019 and the mandate of the Forum will end when the delegates have prepared and adopt draft Bills.
Last Week the National Dialogue Forum informed Minister of Justice Given Lubinda that delegates had resolved to have a two-day extension of the forum as it was evident that the process will not be concluded in 10 days.
Addressing the media in Lusaka, Forum chairperson Professor Muyunda Mwanalushi said the delegates had committed themselves to sober debates and doing a good job for the sake of posterity.
“We have the initial 10 days to finalize the work and we want to state that no one is being rushed or forced to finalize the work within those days. We have committed ourselves to sober debates and doing a good job for the sake of posterity. It is, however, becoming clear that we may need to extend the 10 days a little longer in order to complete the process. I must confirm that we have this morning written to the Minister of Justice to provisionally inform him on the possible request by the Forum to extend…” Prof Mwanalushi.
Meanwhile, the National Dialogue Forum has said that no member of Parliament that has decided to stay away from the National Dialogue Forum will be prosecuted.
Forum Secretary Patrick Chisanga has told a media briefing that the Forum has no powers to prosecute or take legal action against any member who decides to stay away.
Commenting on media reports attributed to the Forum Chairperson Professor Muyunda Mwanalushi threatening imprisonment against UPND Members of Parliament who have decided to stay away from the Forum, Mr. Chisanga said the Chairperson did not make any such statement and was therefore misquoted.
Mr. Chisanga said Parliament has its own staff outside who are registering those attending or not and the reports are given to the Clerk of the National Assembly to monitor their own members’ attendance.
Hypocrates,why extended when you already know what the outcome will be.wasting time and tax payers money.zambia the real Africa.
Lubinda should succeed Lungu. He works very very hard. Like all of you when he talks I listen
Thanks
BB2014,2016
It is simply wrong to form another Parliament. Today these illegal assemblers says no one will be prosecuted? Lubinda is one should be prosecuted for coup on Matibini.
So what are they going to do with that crook Tutwa who went about annoying Zambians with threats on their MPs?
Delegates at the ongoing National Dialogue Forum have adopted the resolution to amend Article 81 of the Constitution to allow members of parliament run for a full term of five years until the outcome of the next general election.
These fooooools are really out touch with reality!!
@Jay Jay if you are interested in that crap then go join them. Don’t rewrite and force us to debate.
We debated before and came up with “People Driven Constitution”.
Signed in stadium!
That was final.
Nostra… put the drink down and sober up…then you can think about debating
still wasting our resources ba fi.kala aba.go back to your constituencies and work…
But please let them change the forum chairperson immediately because you cant have a forum chairperson who says a quorum is only applicable at the start of a meeting. Where on earth?
One reason I hate DEMOCRACY is that it gives citizens constitutional freedom.
Freedom of expression always is one of the fundamental rights exercised by people in democratic states.Results …?
People are free to UTTER anything without even thinking regardless of their social status.Worse in African setups.
But why do you want to bring back the deputy ministers and temper with so many progresive clauses such as 50+1 among others?
This is and has been the most useless gathering at the expense of important national issues like the looming famine as a result of drought currently happening in Zambia, we still have no conclusion on unpaid lecturers and the plight of students, Bowman Lusambo accused of murder and the justice minister is not even interested plus many more issues. This whole forum for those that are blind has been set to facilitate PF grip on power, slowly slipping Zambia into a one party state….. WATCH THIS SPACE!!!
And we say that we have reasonable leaders in Zambia, we should be ashamed of ourselves because we don’t teach these politicians a lesson that they should not take us as fools. Why should we be awez talk about coming up with a good constitution wen our friends who are serious made theirs once and for then they concentrated on looking at progressive things but for us its awez constitution amendments for how long how we going to keep on wasting money and time on this document surely, even the international communities keeps on laughing at us Let’s sobber up gentleman we are becoming a disgrace to the future generations just because of the few selfish and self centered people called leader can’t even call them leaders they are misleaders.