Africa-Press – Zambia. The Parliamentary Select Committee appointed to scrutinize the Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Bill N.A.B. No. 7 of 2025 has compiled its final report.
Absent among its recommendations is the appointment of Ministers from outside Parliament.
However, it does acknowledge that some stakeholders did actually recommend it.
Note however that this Parliamentary Select Committee was restricted to Bill 7 which did not include the appointment of Ministers.
It was the stakeholders that appeared before it that “smuggled” in the issue.
The Mushabati technical Committee had a similar mandate which did not include the appointment of Ministers but stakeholders brought it in, anyway.
However, the Mushabati committee had also been mandated to examine other recommendations from previous constitutional review commissions and technical committees.
This is why the Mushabati committee, in its recommendations, included the appointment of Ministers outside parliament.
So, if Bill 7 had been deferred to seek further consultation, then the Parliamentary Select Committee should have reflected this submission contained in the Mushabati committee as it has been demanded in every previous constitutional review.
It would appear that the Select committee just picked up where it left off.
So, what was the point behind the appointment of the Mushabati committee, it’s report and its proposed Bill?
Was it window-dressing? Was it to merely to satisfy those that went to court demanding public consultation?
It appears as though somebody behind the scenes was saying, “these guys (the opposition and civil society) think they are clever by going to court. We ll just go through the motions but in the end do what we want”.
However, be as it may, MPs can’t be expected to recommend that Ministers are appointed outside parliament.
They see ministerial positions as a great honor and a promotion.
I bet they look forward to being appointed to Cabinet positions.
And yet, both positions are fulltime in their nature which results in one of them suffering.
If this proposal were to pass, may be we need a constituent assembly with the power to pass a constitution because parliament is equally a creature of the supreme law of the land.
By allowing MPs to pass amendments in which they have vested interests is no different from one asking one football team to set the rules of the game and select match officials!
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