Bill 7’s hidden dangers: A response to Mr Hamasaka — and the questions State House still has not answered

Prof. Cephas Lumina

WHEN State House Chief Communications Specialist Clayson Hamasaka challenged critics of the Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Bill No. 7 of 2025 (Bill 7) to “point out what is bad in Bill 7” (Charles Chisala, “Point out what’s bad in Bill 7 – State House,” The Mast, 3 December 2025), he framed the national debate as though opponents were merely quibbling about timing. He insisted that “the only argument” critics had raised was the perceived link between the amendments and the August 2026 general elections.

That is not correct.

The timing is certainly suspicious — especially given the rushed, opaque, and politically charged way the government has approached constitutional reform — but timing is only one concern among many.

For months, I have publicly analysed the contents and implications of Bill 7 in an International IDEA article titled “An Enlarged but Weakened Parliament? Zambia’s Proposed Constitutional Amendments” (June 2025) and in a trilogy published in The Mast titled “A Trojan Horse at the Gates: Why Bill 7 Threatens Zambia’s Constitution and Democracy” (Parts I, II, and III, 25 September, 2 October, and 9 October 2025). These analyses identify numerous structural and substantive defects in Bill 7 — defects which Mr Hamasaka did not address, and which cannot be dismissed as mere concerns about electoral timing. Since he has now invited those opposed to Bill 7 to “point out what is bad in it,” I offer my response below, summarising the most problematic provisions and the deeper constitutional dangers they pose. I also invite him to read the above-mentioned analyses.

The delimitation report the public has never seen

Mr Hamasaka’s defence of the Bill leaned heavily on the claim that the proposed increase in constituency-based seats — from 156 to 211 — simply seeks to “actualize the delimitation report.”

But this raises the first and most glaring red flag: The public has never seen the 2019 Delimitation Report. Not in 2019. Not in 2020. Not in 2021 or 2022. Not once during the government’s frantic constitutional amendment activity in 2025.

Despite this secrecy, the government insists that the public should accept, on faith, that the report justifies a massive restructuring of Parliament. Yet citizens were expected to make submissions to the Technical Committee on Amendments to the Constitution on delimitation without access to the document itself.

As I stated in Part I of my trilogy, this violates basic constitutional principles of openness and public participation. A constitutional amendment can never be legitimate when the data that supposedly justifies it is hidden from citizens. I made the same point in my International IDEA article: concerns about the opacity of the process are “well-founded” and unresolved.

A reform exercise that begins with secrecy cannot end in trust.

CDF: The argument the government keeps getting wrong

To be clear: Mr Hamasaka himself did not invoke the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in his defence of Bill 7. His justification focused solely on the “actualisation” of the 2019 Delimitation Report. However, other UPND and government officials have repeatedly invoked CDF as the reason constituencies must be split — claiming that “oversized” constituencies hinder effective CDF utilisation.

This narrative collapses under evidence from multiple independent sources.

A 2024 study by Muyaloka and Kachamba (“Assessing Factors Influencing the Failure of Constituency Development Fund (CDF) Projects in Education and Health Sectors in Zambia”) shows that CDF problems arise from administrative failures — not constituency size. Other research, such as the 2024 study by Mwaka, Ndhlovu and Kumari (“Review of the Constituency Development Fund as a Strategy for Women and Youth Empowerment in Lusaka Central Constituency”), similarly identifies CDF challenges:

political interference,
weak oversight,
misuse and mismanagement of funds,
limited administrative capacity among some CDF structures,
low capacity among beneficiaries to develop project proposals, and
low public awareness of CDF.

These same governance failures are extensively documented in the Auditor-General’s 2023 Report, which highlights mismanagement, unaccounted-for expenditure, weak monitoring systems, and poor loan recovery, among other challenges.

Not one of these studies identifies constituency size as a problem.

And the fiscal context is equally important. According to the 2025 Budget Speech, CDF accounts for just 2.6% of national expenditure — K5.6 billion out of a K217 billion budget.

It is therefore constitutionally reckless to restructure Parliament for the sake of a fund that constitutes only 2.6% of the national budget, especially when evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that administrative failures — not geographic size — impede its effectiveness.

Even if constituency size mattered (it does not), government could allocate CDF based on population instead of redrawing political boundaries. No constitutional amendment is required; the solution is administrative.

That the government does not appear to have explored this simple remedy suggests that CDF effectiveness is not the true motive.

Bill 7 weakens, not strengthens, accountability

As detailed in Part II of my trilogy, Bill 7 is not a technical tidying exercise. It structurally weakens Parliament and undermines oversight. Key dangers include:

Dissolving Parliament only one day before elections, eliminating a safeguard that previously protected against last-minute legislative manipulation.
Barring Parliament from sitting for 90 days before elections, removing oversight precisely when it is needed most but with MPs still drawing their salaries.
Integrating MPs into local councils, collapsing the separation between oversight and implementation.
Removing term limits for mayors and council chairpersons, entrenching incumbency, and laying the groundwork for future attacks on presidential term limits.
Allowing political parties to fill parliamentary vacancies without by-elections, shifting sovereignty away from citizens.

These are not technicalities; they are structural attacks on democratic accountability.

Bill 7 was declared a nullity — yet government seeks to revive it

The Constitutional Court’s ruling in Munir Zulu declared the process leading to Bill 7 unconstitutional — effectively declaring Bill 7 a legal nullity. The government was directed to start afresh with an independent, expert-led, people-driven process. It appeared to comply by appointing a Technical Committee but then appears to have abandoned even the outcome of that flawed process — the Committee’s report and draft amendment Bill — and is now attempting to resuscitate a Bill that no longer exists in law, while urging the Court to overturn its own judgment in Munir Zulu.

This is not constitutional reform. It is constitutional brinkmanship.

Conclusion: The questions Mr Hamasaka must now answer

The concerns raised above point to a deeper crisis: a persistent absence of transparency where openness is most needed. Critical information has been withheld, essential processes obscured, and constitutionally mandated safeguards sidestepped:

The 2019 Delimitation Report remains secret.
Citizens were asked to comment on delimitation without the report on which the amendment proposal is based.
The Oasis Forum dialogue was not televised fully; pro-government meetings were.
Allegations of attempted bribery of MPs remain unaddressed.
The Technical Committee’s report and draft Bill have not been published.
Government is reviving a Bill already declared a nullity.

It is in this context that Mr Hamasaka’s challenge must be met. The defects in Bill 7 have been clearly pointed out. The next step is his — and the government’s — to take:

Why is the government in such a rush to push these ruinous and polarising amendments through?
Why can these amendments not wait until after the August 2026 elections?
Why is a Bill declared legally non-existent being resurrected?
Why has the Delimitation Report been kept hidden from the public?
Why were citizens asked to make submissions without it?
Why has the government not addressed the MP bribery allegations?
Why was the Oasis Forum dialogue with the President not fully televised?
Why has the Technical Committee’s draft Bill not been published?

These are the questions the nation waits for Mr Hamasaka to answer. Only then can Zambians judge whether this constitutional project is guided by principle — or by something far more troubling.