Africa-Press – Zambia. There is so much to talk or write about. But I will start by going straight to parliament.
Repeal Article 68 and replace it with the following:
The National Assembly shall consist of –
(a) 211 elected Members of Parliament
(b) less or equal to 20 – women proportion representation
(c) less or equal to 12 Youth’s – proportional representation
(d) less or equal to 3 persons with disabilities – proportional representation
(e) less or equal to 10 nominated
(f) Vice President
(g) speakers 3
Table format may look like this👇🏻.
No Dicription Current. Proposed. Diff
— —————- ———— ————. ——
(1) Elected. 156. 211. 55
(2) Women. 0. 20. 20
(3) Youths 0. 12. 12
(4) Disability. 0. 3. 3
(5) Nominated 8. 10. 2
(6) Speaker 3. 3. 0
Totals 167. 259. 92
“Numbers do not lie.”
From the table above, I can deduce the following:
(1) Government wants to expand the National Assembly of Zambia by 92 Members of Parliament.
(2) The main reason for this expansion is constituency delimitation and not women or youths or indeed persons with disability.
(3) Constitutional amendments would produce a whooping 55 MPs from delimitation of constituencies, a minimal 20 women at most, another negligible 12 Youth’s at most and a meagre 3 people with disability from proportional representation at the very most.
Then I think about the increase in cost of running government.
-Increased chamber facility
-Increased rental of constituency offices
-Increased staff to cater for increased constituencies
-Increased cost of running council meetings
-Increased wage bill
Let’s appreciate that all these costs and more will be covered by a tax payer. This is a tax payer who is operating in an extremely difficult business environment because of the increased cost of doing business.
These challenges are mainly driven by corruption, high cost of fuel, crippling load shedding and unreasonable taxation.
I would strongly recommend that government postpones this unreasonable expansion of government to be funded by oppressed tax payers. This ambition should be preceded by enabling the business environment so that the economy could start performing. Cost of living is improved, then government can embark on this expansion.
Otherwise from where I stand, this proposal to expand not only government but the cost of running it is immoral and clearly lacks concern for both the tax payer and the suffering majority Zambians.
You must understand; this is partly why Church mother bodies said No, CSOs said No, LAZ said No, other political players including myself said No.
I encourage government to heed the people on this. They are the ones who you will overtax to fund this expansion.
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