Friday, March 29, 2024

UPND Carders’ Behaviour during the Bill 10 Discussion Forum Condemned

..UPND's conduct threatens the participation of those who hold divergent views in such future activities meant to deepen the country's democracy.

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A consortium of civil society organizations have condemned the unruly conduct of UPND carders during a news diggers organized Bill 10 discussion forum Friday last week.

Speaking during a press briefing Sunday morning,Young African Leaders initiative YALI president Andrew Ntewewe who represented the CSOs said the UPND’s conduct threatens the participation of those who hold divergent views in such future activities meant to deepen the country’s democracy.

He noted that the UPND have constantly raised issues of trusting the PF in regards to constitutional issues and questioned who should be trusted between unruly carders at a forum or a well organized and divergent forum such as the NDF.

Mr Ntewewe has since advised news diggers and those sponsoring the forum to put mechanisms to ensure that such fora are not ulitilised as campaign platforms for expression of intolerant behaviour for those with opposing viewpoints.

And Mr Ntewewe has bemoaned the falsehood peddled by lawyer John Sangwa, Linda Kasonde and UPND Members of parliament to discredit bill 10 during the same forum accusing the PF governments as being the ones that generated the content .

He recalled that when UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema lost the 2016 election petitioned the constitutional court, the same unrully UPND carders who today are saying the constitution is ok went ballistic against court judges accusing them of corruption for ruling that the petition could not be heard as the 14 days had elapsed.

“This is the same John Sangwa who abandoned Mr Hichilema and argued that 14 days was not sufficient for the petition to be heard but today has changed and wants the public to believe that he never saw anything wrong with the constitution. Is this not legal hypocrisy from a man with a stature of state counsel?” Mr Ntewewe questioned.

Mr Ntewewe has challenged stakeholders to begin to ask serious questions on when government recieved submissions and how various provisions found themselves in the bill.

“The ones who have let this country down on constitutional making are those are speaking the loudest today against bill 10 because they had an opportunity to make submissions yet the chose not to, they had an opportunity to scrutinize the proposals but shun the process” he said.

Mr ntewewe together with the other CSOs namely common ground network, Zambia institute of governance and civil liberties advocacy platform have since said there is no need to withdraw bill 10 saying it will be expensive to abandon a process further adding that once a bill is withdrawn it can not be brought back in parliament during the same session.

Meanwhile news diggers have distanced themselves from the upnd’s conduct during the forum and advised members wishing to attend such platforms to desist from engaging in partisan politics meant to disrupt the participation of divergent views.

Mr Ntewewe has since challenged members of parliament to sober up and find a common ground to bring amendments to the existing parliamentary procedure.

31 COMMENTS

  1. Doesn’t surprise me from that party of degenerates. It reflects on the lack of discipline in the upnd starting from their leader who has failed to hold conventions for years now. How do you impose yourself on a party just because you bankroll it? In pf we don’t care how much money you put in or have. The party constitution applies to all equally. Kz

  2. Is Kaizer a PF cadre or a civil servant? If civil servant, is he professionally right to participate on this forum?

    Any comment from GRZ?

  3. The sentiments against bill 10 raised at that forum are only being painted as “UPND” because you want to reject them without giving them due consideration.

    State Council Sangwa’s key message was that bill 10 gives too much power to the office of the president. This excessive power has been what has been holding us back as a nation economically.
    It is therefore not surprising that those enjoying stolen power are the ones labelling everything as “UPND”.

  4. Lynch mob misleader – You are misdirecting your comment. Ntewewe is talking about the inability to hold a progressive forum where both sides are heard and therefore appropriate questions can be asked. The atmosphere during this forum was such that one could tell that the team against Bill 10 had sponsored cadres who drowned what the other group was saying. If this is the way the other camp will be debating national issues, I am afraid you will make very few friends.

  5. I watched the debate, Ntonyonyo was given the floor and and he was just waffling . The young lady youth activist from Munali who spoke after you was on point and Andrew better learn from her.

  6. Ntewewe all the time what ever u say is always that which supports the PF hw do u want pipo to trust u that u are for the good of the nation.

  7. Wena Nthewewe or whatever they call you when behaving like a headless chicken, who in their right frame of mind fails to see through the PF evil machinations wrapped in this so called Bill 10 of yours. You have to be on drugs or are a complete lunatic to defend these Bill 10 masalamusi.

  8. First of all you cannot trust the pf guyz when it comes to the bill 10, because we all know here that the pf are trying to use the bill 10 to rig elections in 2021… So to create a level playing field, that evil bill 10 must thrown away..

  9. #advisor, people were just responding in kind to the brutality the PF has been using to advance bill 10. Who can blame them for passionately wanting to defend the nation from lies that will revert us back to a one party state?

    They should be applauded, not condemned.

  10. F off Kaizer, that dimwit asked a st00pid question and looked a real degenerate. You are civil servant paid by us you id0t so stay in your lane.

  11. This is the same ntwetwe who was paid to go round the country to garner support for the bill so whatever he says must be taken with caution.

  12. Lynch mob misleader – This was not the forum to show your brutality. This was not about applauding anyone but the truth to come out and those espousing falsehoods to be exposed. But when you hire thugs to disturb the event, how do you think we are going to defeat those peddling falsehoods by calling them out on facts?

  13. There are only 2 reasons why someone can support pf ,it’s either you are benefitting cadre from the economic spoils or one of your relatives is pf and you enjoying some scraps falling from their table.

  14. They are called bantustan savages. They accuse their opponents of dictatorship yet they don’t tolerate divergent views that questions their small demigod hh. Only they have all the solutions to Zambia’s problems.

  15. Zambian citizen leave HH alone, your government is the one that is supposed to be listerning you’re the ones chewing tax payers’ funds and so you have to listern. Retirees, and others you promised stuff are waiting for you to fulfil your promises. This thing of constantly insulting and accusing HH is not going to help, just get to work and get those promises fulfilled. Who in their right mind would allow a government responsible for load-shedding, higher prices, famine and more suffering to change the constitution. It is like sentecing yourself to death allowing that useless bill

  16. infact prime TV must be closed for viewing that useless forum which was characterized by upnd cadres and some poor useless NGO whose aim is to discredit this nation.zambia is for Zambians.Prime TV did show professionalism when viewing that forum.

  17. close prime TV for hiring that forum which want to discredite this nation.NGO’s supporting upnd we know them and they should be ashemd.

  18. Where were the PF carders? This was in Lusaka, Is it because most of them are in bus stations and dont understand English. Who are the supporters of Bill 10 among the professionals and the general citizenry or has the PF become so unpopular that only Ntewewe is on their side? I watched the debate, yes there were disruptions but salute young Tutwa’s composure and at least he managed to say what was on his mind…and the audience had the right to disagree with him or applaud him.

  19. I think the problem with PF and their aligned political cadres is that, they believe that Zambians are stupid, what they should know is that Zambians know every evil that PF has caused zambia in terms of economic degradation, unprecedented corruption, destruction of governance institutions for political engradisement suppression of freedoms and many more evils too numerous to mention, every human being has a limit to which he or she can accept stupidity and most Zambians have now reached that limit, what you are seeing now is that they are now pushing back and saying we can not any more be feed with midiocracy hence the anoyance against the PF that you see today, as PF you should desist from further telling more lies because Zambians have seen through you and any more lies will just make…

  20. them more annoyed, accept that Zambians will no longer eat lies from PF and for once try to rebrand with the truth to reduce the annoyance of Zambians against you, Whatever you are doing now just know Zambians are far much ahead of you and you can never cheat the again, Zambians know what you want to achieve with your bill 10 and they know it is for your own benefit because they know you from many years of experience, My humble advice is that those riot kits that you have spent Zambian money on should be used if you are doing the right things, but if you are going to deliberately do the wrong things and use that equipment for oppressive purposes then I can assure you that in that case things won’t end well because those of us on the ground have seen how much anger is out there, PLEASE DO…

  21. Those Carders denied me a chance to here and know the true controversy around bill 10. Every person who appeared to have views aligned to the government was booed even before they could talk. That was barbaric. They intimidated everyone with an opposing view. The moderator was completely rendered useless.

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