Speaker of the National Assembly Nelly Mutti has told political leaders to take a leading role in uniting the country if future generations are to inherit a better Zambia.
When paying a courtesy call on Copperbelt Minister Elisha Matambo in Ndola on Sunday, Ms. Mutti said political leaders have a duty to bring citizens together in harmony.
She said the people of Zambia are not interested in seeing divisions as politicians govern the country.
Ms. Mutti said Zambians need to preserve and protect the country so that children can grow in peace and harmony with one another.
“We are glad Honourable Minister (Elisha Matambo) for your assurance that you have reunited the country especially Copperbelt Province. I think the role of politicians is to unite, we don’t want to see divisions as you govern the country. Our role as legislature is to ensure that people are represented and also the oversight function that we provide and this can only be done if people live in peace and in harmony with each other. We should know that we are all one people regardless of what our beliefs are whether politically or tribal. We are just one people and we are all working for the good and betterment of this country we call Zambia. We only have one Zambia which we all need to preserve and protect so that our children can grow in peace and harmony with one another,” Ms. Mutti said.
Meanwhile, Ms Mutti has launched her tour of Constituencies on the Copperbelt with an emphasis that the developmental agenda must meet people’s expectations.
Ms Mutti and her two deputies have started a familiarization tour of all the 156 constituencies in the country.
Ms. Mutti said the National Assembly wants to check on the operations of Parliamentary Offices in Constituencies and to interact with the people.
Ms. Mutti added that the developmental agenda must be tailored according to people’s wishes and needs.
“Honourable Minister we are here to visit our constituencies’ offices as you are aware we have 156 constituency offices all over the country. In some constituencies we have built our own offices. I don’t know how many of our own offices we have from the Copperbelt. So we are going to check and see where our Honourable Members of Parliament are operating from. As you have said with the increased constituency development funds there is so much activity at constituency level by our decentralisation. We want to see how the CDF is being applied, how the people are reacting and also to check the interaction between our offices and members of the public. As you know the Constituency Office is the face of the Members of Parliament because most of the time the Member of Parliament is not at the constituency, he is maybe in Lusaka attending parliament,” she said.
Ms. Mutti continued:”So in his absence, the constituency office is there to provide guidance and collect information from members of the public in terms of what is required of them. If they have any issues to raise with Members of Parliament, they can do it through officers on the ground. We also want to know if our officers are interacting with the people, manpower, what are the challenges of any, how we can improve the function of the constituency office and the interaction so it is a fact finding trip. In future we want to have such meetings at our Constituency Office because when we come, we come for the people of each constituency so we need to have an interaction with the people. They need to see the Speaker, if they have any views or concerns we pick them and follow them up.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Matambo said it was important that the Speaker of the National Assembly is abreast with the operation of Parliamentary Offices in all constituencies.
Mr. Matambo assured the Speaker that the New Dawn Government has restored people and harmony in the Copperbelt Province.
Meanwhile, Speaker of the National Assembly Nelly Mutti later on Sunday visited Chifubu Constituency where she planted a tree, inspected the new police post being constructed using CDF.
The Speaker also held a closed door meeting with Chifubu Member of Parliament Lloyd Lubozha.
