Laura laughs at ‘sham’ Bill 7 process
By George Zulu
THE United Party for National Development (UPND) government should feel ashamed of itself for rushing the amendments to the Constitution without any form of structure, political and social commentator Laura Miti has said.
Miti, a staunch UPND supporter and defender of President Hakainde Hichilema, said the rush to fix the proposed constitution amendments had exposed the UPND, the driver of the agenda.
“What I am saying is [that the UPND] government should be ashamed of itself for being in such a rush that it could not even come up with a standard process that determines that what happened in Mansa would generally mirror that in Mongu,” she said.
Miti said the UPND was panicking and was pushing and finishing the Bill-7 agenda in the quickest possible time.
She said what was troubling was the fact that those in power, in their wisdom, were pushing for the illegal Bill 7 to pass at all costs, with huge mistakes.
Miti urged government to hire experts to help it to mask the process with credibility, unlike the way it was doing it.
“The UPND and its government are in such a panic for this Bill 7 to pass, and pass quickly, that they forgot to at least disguise that fact.
Pretend mwebantu [you people]. If there is no one left in government who can design and roll out a professional process, outsource maybe. What an administrative sham! And that’s not even speaking about buying and preventing submissions in accordance with their ‘usefulness,’” she said.
Miti said it was clear from what was happening that nobody in government seemed to understand that it would have dignified the Mushabati Constitution Technical Committee process if it were conducted professionally.
“Look, few people think that the process is not designed to rubber-stamp a pre-determined conclusion, but does it have to be made patently clear by shoddy design? If it were not tragic, it would be amusing how no direction was given on how submissions, from the tiny part of Zambia targeted, would be received in a manner that pretended that this was a serious, thought-through and structured process,” she said.
