Lungu bashes hypocrites
President Lungu noted with concern that the selfishness of some politicians who did not see beyond personal desires.
He said inconsistency by some politicians caused the failure of the Referendum last year.
The President said this at State House yesterday when he met human rights commissioners.
“Politics in Zambia can take us down, we had a Referendum on the Bill of Rights but some politicians’ decampaigained it and now today they are calling for human rights.
“It’s high time that politicians became patriotic and loyal to the people, this kind of selfishness must come to an end. They must begin to see beyond their desires,” President Lungu said.
He however, indicated that Government would undertake another Referendum when funds allow.
And the Head of State said his Government was committed in promoting and ensuring that human rights were respected in Zambia.
He assured that the Ministry of Justice had made progress on the amendment of the Public Order Act.
“Hopefully the Bill will be presented to Parliament in the first sitting in 2018,” he said.
President Lungu also assured that Government would look into the issue of police brutality, which some people had complained about. “The issue of police brutality is high on our agenda, because we don’t want to run a Government of torture.
We will do our best to ensure that the police are well educated on this matter,” he said. And Human Rights Commission Chairperson Mudford Mwandenga commended President Lungu and his Government for championing human rights in Zambia. Mr Mwandenga said Zambia was on the right track in improving human rights. “The presentation of the amended constitution by the President last year, demonstrates the promotion of human rights in Zambia,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Mwandenga has called on President Lungu to consider appointing the seventh commissioner, as at the moment there were six commissioners on the commission.
He further lamented that the commission was under-funded, therefore making it difficult for the commission to fully carry out its duties.
He said there was need to enhance capacity of the commission as it was present in only six provinces out of ten provinces in the country.
“The commission is facing a lot of challenges and needs adequate funding, so we hope that these challenges will be resolved,” he said.