SACCORD has called on the PF government through Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda to ensure that it allocates resources for the completion of the constitution making process as he presents the 2015 budget on Friday, 10 October 2014.

SACCORD Executive Director Boniface Cheembe says the constitution making process remains in limbo 3 years after the process was started while huge amounts of money continues to be spent on the process which has stalled since it was handed over to the government.

Mr. Cheembe also called on the Minister to account for the resources allocated to the process in the 2014 budget as there has been no activity regarding the process apart from the never ending debate on the whereabouts of the document.

He further urged the Minister to ensure that resources are provided for the conclusion of the constitution making process and for a referendum so as to ensure the adoption of the new constitution.

Below is a full statement on the expectations of SACCORD in the 2015 budget issued by the Executive Director Boniface Cheembe.

7th October 2014

SACCORD Press Statement on 2015 Budget expectations

As the Minister of Finance prepares to present the 2015 national budget, the Southern African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (SACCORD) would like to remind the minister to provide sufficient resources for the following areas which we feel are critical in consolidating our democracy, job creation, improving on human rights, peaceful co-existence and the general wellbeing of the people of Zambia. These are: The constitution making process; funding to the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ); respect for human rights; youth employment; job creation; and national Unity. We believe that it is important to build on the gains that the country has continued to record over the years. We therefore urge the Minister of Finance to provide in the 2015 budget for the following:

Constitution making process: The constitution making process has continued over the last 3 years with very little if anything being achieved while colossal sums of taxpayers’ money being allocated to it and in most cases is spent. We note with great sadness that the process has lately been allocated huge amounts of money which cannot be accounted for when it comes to the actual work done. In 2014, more that K40 million kwacha was allocated to this process as far as we are concerned there has been zero work done on the constitution in 2014 apart from the continued debate of where the draft constitution is. We would like to urge the minister to account for this money in his speech and also ensure that enough funds are provided so that the process in concluded and a national referendum held to adopt the new constitution.

We still believe that there is no need to continue dragging this process as most Zambians would like to have a final say on the constitution and this can only be through the referendum being called for by most Zambians.

Electoral Commission of Zambia: In 2016, Zambia will be holding general elections and as the law demands, the Electoral Commission of Zambia will need to register new voters in addition to delimitation of constituency boundaries as a result of new districts that have been created by the Patriotic Front (PF) government. We therefore urge the minister to provide enough funds to the ECZ so that it can begin working on the above programs in order to ensure proper representation of the people was well as allowing for all eligible voters to take part in elections. The commission is critical to the development of democracy in Zambia and we would like to urge government to ensure that its works is made easier through providing for sufficient resources.

Public Order Act (POA): The Public Order Act has remained a challenge in this country. While we note some slight improvements in its administration as compared to 2013, a lot still needs to be done not only with regards the conduct of police officers but the pressure exerted of officers by political leaders in government. We also urge the minister to ensure that enough funds are provided for police to recruit more officers and have enough equipment to be able to guarantee peace and order in the country. We also urge the police leadership to respect provisions of our constitution which guarantee the freedom of association, expression and assembly for all the people in Zambia. This has to be respected regardless of the political party seeking to enjoy these rights belong to.

Human rights: Zambia’s human rights record still remains unimpressive especially when it comes to Civil and political rights. The state despite making commitments to international bodies such as the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in which a lot of concerns were raised regarding the rights for individuals and groups in the country has not done enough to actualize these commitments. We urge government to ensure that it respects the rights of all people in the country by allocating adequate resources to start implementing accepted recommendations under the UPR.

Revised decentralization policy: We urge the Minister of Finance to allocate adequate resources towards the revised decentralization policy so that the country can begin to experience an expedited process of implementation.

Job creation: A number of Zambians are jobless and some of those with jobs have unstable jobs which also do not pay well. This has continued to lead to poverty among the larger majority of Zambians. We therefore urge government to provide for conditions in the 2015 budget which will allow for job creation so as to reduce on poverty levels in the country.

Youth employment: The youths in Zambia are the most affected in terms of lack of jobs. The year 2014 has not been good in that more youths still remain unemployed with some not even able to go to school. We urge the Minister to ensure that funds are provided for alternative income generating programs for youths so that those that can’t get employed can venture into them. We also believe that the Youth Fund should receive more money and these should be given without political affiliation considerations as the accusations have been under the 2013 and 2014 allocations.

National Unity: As Zambia turns 50 years in peace, it is important that the country sustains this peace. The peace Zambia has enjoyed over the years has been as a result of efforts that have been undertaken to work for peace by all people in Zambia. We therefore urge the government and the minister of finance to ensure that programmes that seek to promote national unity receive sufficient funds for them to be sustained.

Boniface Cheembe

Executive Director

SACCORD

Uhuru Kenyatta arrived at JKIA early Tuesday morning for a first class business KQ flight to the Netherlands ahead of his ICC trial status conference scheduled for Wednesday.

Kenyatta arrived at the airport at 8.30am accompanied by his wife Margaret Kenyatta and their daughter Ngina.

He did not have his regular security detail but had a few bodyguards according to sources within the travelling party.

Kenyatta additionally used the regular VIP lounge and not the presidential lounge reserved for the president at the airport.

The Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has temporarily stepped down as president while attending a hearing at the international criminal court this week, he said in a national address on Monday.

Kenyatta faces charges of crimes against humanity at the ICC, which is based at The Hague, Netherlands, over allegations that he helped instigate violence that followed Kenya’s December 2007 presidential election, when more than 1,000 people were killed.

The court ordered him to attend a status hearing on Wednesday, denying his request that he participate by video. The hearing will be the first time a sitting president has attended an ICC session, a milestone Kenyatta’s political supporters have urged him to avoid.

Seeking to bypass that notation in history, the president said on Monday that he would invoke a hitherto unused article of the constitution that will see the deputy president, William Ruto, temporarily become president.

The short-term abdication is Kenyatta’s way of fulfilling the court order while insisting that he is attending the hearing as a private citizen.

In his speech, Kenyatta maintained his innocence, noted that the ICC prosecutor had been admonished by the court for her faltering case and recalled that the African Union had passed a resolution granting immunity from international tribunals for sitting presidents.

Kenyatta also claimed that Africa’s “century of exploitation and domination” by the west was continuing. Critics of the ICC note that it has only prosecuted Africans.

Lastly, Kenyatta said the accusations he faced occurred before he became president.

“It is for this reason that I chose not to put the sovereignty of more than 40 million Kenyans on trial since their democratic will should never be subject to another jurisdiction,” Kenyatta said.

“Therefore let it not be said that I am attending the status conference as the president of Kenya,” he continued. “Nothing in my position or my deeds as president warrants my being in court.”

George Kegoro, executive director of the Kenyan chapter of the International Commission of Jurists, praised the president for following the rule of law. If Kenyatta had refused to go, he risked an international arrest warrant and international condemnation or economic sanctions against Kenya.

“If he had refused it would have destroyed our economy. The economy would not have recovered during his tenure,” said Gitobu Imanyara, a lawyer and former legislator.

The case against Kenyatta appears to be collapsing as witnesses refuse to testify or recant their statements. A once-rocky relationship with the US and Europe also seems to be improving.

Kenyatta, Ruto and Joshua arap Sang, a Kenyan radio presenter, all face charges of crimes against humanity before the ICC for inciting massive violence following the 2007 election. That violence – often ethnically motivated – killed more than 1,000 people and uprooted 600,000 from their homes.

Kenyatta has appeared before the court before but was not president at the time.

Kenyatta and Ruto, who were on opposing sides of the 2007-08 conflict, formed a political alliance that won the presidency and a majority in parliament after they were indicted for the crimes against humanity. They used the ICC charges as a rallying cry of us v the world.

The Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) has lost an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Lusaka High Court judgment which ruled that the authority should refund 3,525 former civil servants money it wrongfully deducted from them.

Following the ruling, ZRA would have to refund the former government workers who left employment under the Voluntary Separation Scheme in 1999 over K4.2 million wrongfully deducted from their terminal benefits.The money would be refunded with interests, costs and any other relief.

In her ruling, Supreme Court Judge Hildah Chibomba, who sat with justices Elizabeth Muyovwe and Florence Lengalenga, said the appeal by ZRA lacked merit and she referred the matter back to the deputy registrar for assessment.

She said the High Court was entitled to conclude as it did, that sections 87,108 and 113 did not have any application to that action.

Ms Justice Chibomba said the lower court was also on solid ground when it referred the matter to the deputy registrar for assessment as clearly, there was a dispute, to which the ZRA was a party, over the computation of the amounts owed which needed to be resolved.

“We therefore, find no basis to disturb the findings of the learned judge. This one ground of appeal, therefore, fails,” Ms Justic Chibomba said.

“For reasons stated above, this appeal is dismissed for lack of merit and the matter is referred back to the deputy registrar for assessment. Cost in this court and in the court below are for the respondents to be taxed in default of agreement.”

When the former workers were separated from government in 1999, they were paid special severance package which ZRA taxed although they were exempted from tax under part IV of the second schedule of the Income Tax act. The former civil servants took the matter to court against ZRA.

In January 2013, the two parties signed a consent order in which it was mutually agreed that the judgment in default of appearance and defence be set aside and that the workers be paid according to their individual assessments.

After change of advocates, the former government workers complained of under payments after ZRA declined to pay on ground that the claims had been re-assessed and they were refunded through their previous advocates.ZRA objected and filed a notice to raise preliminary issues, urging the court to set aside the application for irregularity and that it was its contention that the assessment ought to be done by the authority and not the court.

The deputy registrar dismissed the preliminary objection and ordered that the matter proceeds for assessment on account that ZRA, as a party to the dispute, could not assess the extent of its own liability.

ZRA appealed to the High Court in chambers advancing five grounds among them that what the former government workers had been claiming was ultra vires the consent order and untenable at law, and that the learned deputy registrar had not taken into account the fact that the workers had already been paid their refunds.

But the former civil servants argued that the deputy registrar was on firm ground when he ordered that the assessment should proceed.

After considering the submissions, the High Court judge dismissed all the five grounds of appeal and found that since the matter had been brought before court it was well within its jurisdiction to conduct the assessment. The judge concluded that as argued by the workers, sections 87, 108 and 113 of the Income Tax Act were irrelevant, as the provision related to matters before they became subject of court proceedings.

The court conceded that the deputy registrar had not addressed the issue of statutory limitation but that on the basis of his findings, the court was confident that the deputy registrar would have reached the same conclusion.

In the Supreme Court, Ms Justice Chibomba said the court noted that there were submissions relating to payment of money into court and that the court had deliberately not given its opinion as it did not find any evidence on the record.

She said the appeal by ZRA lacked clarity on who was to carry out the assessment, when it should be conducted and procedure to follow in the event that the parties disagreed over the assessments. The former civil servants contended that the fact that ZRA had paid into the court K2,783,315.25 was not only an admission of liability, but also, a partial fulfillment of their claim.
On the other hand, ZRA argued that contrary to the former civil servants’ claim that that they were exempted from paying tax on ground that there was no law that provided for taxation of payment made to employees who opt for voluntary separation, section 14 of the Income Tax Act made it mandatory for all income received from any source to be taxed.

[DailyNation]

CONVICTED People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president George Mpombo yesterday started his prison life with police effecting the bench warrant issued last Friday, resulting in him spending a night at the Lusaka Central police after losing his appeal against a nine-month sentence.

And Mpombo yesterday complained to police officers at Central Police that he had no blankets and wondered how he would spend the chilly night.

On Friday, the Lusaka High Court dismissed Mpombo’s appeal to have his nine months sentence quashed because it had failed in its entirety and that the subordinate court conviction and sentence should be upheld.

The Lusaka Magistrate Court last year sentenced Mpombo to nine months imprisonment for theft by public servant, forgery and uttering a false document.

Prior to his detention yesterday Mpombo was taken to the High Court by police officers for other formalities and later taken to Lusaka Central Prison between 14:30 and 15:00 hours.
Lusaka Province police commissioner Lemmy Kajoba confirmed the detention of Mpombo and said that he would be taken to the High Court yesterday.

“Mr Mpombo is in our cells on orders from the court for contempt. It is not a police matter, it is a matter coming from the court. There are two issues, the bench warrant and the sentence slapped on him. What would happen now is that he (Mpombo) would be produced before the court on Monday,” Mr Kajoba said.

He said he was not sure whether Mpombo surrendered himself to the police or not but was driven to Central Police by police officers.

“I don’t know whether he surrendered himself or he was brought here. It’s like he told some journalists that he surrendered himself, but I am not sure. I only saw him (Mpombo) when he was brought to Central Police and officers locking him up because prisons don’t take in prisoners over the weekend,” Mr Kajoba said.

And speaking in an interview from the police cell, Mpombo who did not want to say much said it was okay in the cell.

Mpombo, who looked shocked in the cell with his traditional long beard, was clad in a blue jean and a checked shirt.

Police officers at Central Police pleaded with Mpombo’s relatives who went to visit him to get him some blankets because the night would not be friendly to him.

Earlier in the morning, Mpombo bragged that he was in town relaxing before he enters the prison gates yesterday.

He said he was not expected to meet his lawyer as opposed to what he said on Saturday because he was advised that there was no need to rush for a meeting.

Mpombo said he had nothing to do yesterday apart from relaxing in town and have a nice meal while waiting to go to jail yesterday.

“As for now I will just be in town relaxing and waiting for tomorrow to go to prison,” Mpombo said.

Meanwhile, former deputy Minister of Transport and Communications under the MMD government, Alfred Ndhlovu, said Mpombo should blame himself for failing to retire government travel imprest.

“Many of us were ministers and came out clean and smart of travel imprest issues because we accounted and retired the imprest as required by regulations. Permanent secretaries are controlling officers who usually and politely ask ministers to account for the travel imprest. This is a shame, I pity him,” Mr Ndhlovu said.

GOVERNMENT is determined to ensure that Zambians get the constitution they deserve in the shortest possible time, Justice Minister Edgar Lungu has said.

Mr Lungu said his Ministry was working round the clock to ensure that it put all the logistics in place and get Government approval to release the document.

Mr Lungu was speaking in Livingstone at Chrismar Hotel yesterday when he officially opened the five-day 2014 Legal and Business Conference hosted by the Ministry of Justice under the theme ‘Enhancing Networking among Lawyers and Other Professionals’.

The main objectives of the Conference is to create a platform for networking and general knowledge sharing as well as to sensitise members of other professions on the work conducted by State Advocates and other lawyers.

“Allow me to take advantage of this gathering to announce that Government is determined to ensure that Zambians get the constitution they deserve in the shortest possible time.

If it was possible, we would have done it for you to have the constitution as you celebrate the Golden Jubilee on October 24, 2014.

Alas, the process is full of complexities such that it won’t be possible to give you the constitution on October 24 but suffice to say that the constitution is coming,” Mr Lungu said.

He said the Government had already met other stakeholders and consulted those who had not voiced their views to promote harmony and peace in the country.

Mr Lungu said the whole constitution making process should be owned by the people of Zambia inclusive of the proposed articles.

“We want stakeholders to start talking about the contents immediately we release the draft constitution.

In my discussions with my colleagues, I have noted that very few people have paid attention to serious issues in the draft constitution especially on governance issues in Zambia,” Mr Lungu said.

He also wondered how many Zambians knew the cost of the current governance especially in view of a proposal in the draft constitution to have regional assemblies in 10 provincial headquarters.

“We have a proposal to have regional assemblies in the 10 provincial headquarters and my immediate reaction to that do we know the cost of current governance in Zambia?

My answer is that it will be more expensive to operate regional assemblies. Since we don’t know whether the economy will be buoyant enough to sustain this governance system, we may go bankrupt as a country and those are my personal views,” Mr Lungu said.

He said he had not talked to the Speaker of the National Assembly Patrick Matibini or the Clerk of the National Assembly Doris Mwinga on whether it would be very cheaper to operate Parliament in the format being proposed in the draft constitution.

Mr Lungu said the legal fraternity represented one big family whether one was in Government service or in the private sector.

He said there was a lot that Government lawyers could learn from their colleagues in the private sector and vice versa.

“Both lawyers in the public and private sector should have one purpose to serve and this is the administration of justice.

The issue of ‘them’ and ‘us’ should therefore not arise. We should work together as one big family comprising brothers and sisters,” Mr Lungu said.

He also expressed hope that the recent dispute between Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) and Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) was currently over.

Speaking at the same gathering, Ministry of Justice Permanent Secretary responsible for Administration Josephs Akafumba urged the participants to take the proceedings of the conference seriously as a fertile ground for knowledge.

Mr Akafumba said his Ministry had, since 2005, been working on promoting networking ad team building among State Advocates or lawyers from both the private sector and public sector through the annual State Advocate Workshop.

High Court Judge William Mweemba also presented on dispute resolution as a tool to resolving disputes in Zambia.