Church aloof behavious called into question

Any meeting that has taken place between ZCID and the church has been at the request of ZCID and after having presented what we think is the position of politicians, the church has always responded without any commitment saying that they will get back to us,”

— Raphael Nakacinda.

THE Church mother bodies have never called for a meeting with ZCID save for the UPND and all the meetings held have been initiated by the centre without the church making any commitment other than saying they would get back to us, Raphael Nakacinda has said.

Mr. Nakacinda, who is MMD national secretary, has refuted claims by the three church mother bodies that they have engaged members of ZCID on their intended roadmap for the national dialogue.

He said contrary to the churches’ claims that they have engaged stakeholders like ZCID instead the opposite was true as the church had only met the UPND. He clarified that the only engagement the church mother bodies have had with ZCID was at the request of the centre who met them several times in a bid to convince them to chair the dialogue process.

“It is us who went to the church and the church cannot claim to have met us at this particular moment and here am talking about church leaders. We are yet to hear the process of consultations among them in terms of constituencies and whether indeed the route they have taken is indeed with the full blessing of their entire constituency or it’s just the church leaders.

“Any meeting that has taken place between ZCID and the church has been at the request of ZCID and after having presented what we think is the position of politicians, the church has always responded without any commitment saying that they will get back to us,” Mr. Nakacinda said.

He said there was nothing complicated over the process but hoped that the standoff will be ironed out for the dialogue to start.

And Mr. Nakacinda wondered why the controversy should arise with the church when politicians have agreed on what they wanted to achieve in the process. He said the stance by the church was dragging the process backwards on reforms needed and that the politicians had all agreed on the four thematic areas which needs to be discussed in the dialogue process.

Any meeting that has taken place between ZCID and the church has been at the request of ZCID and after having presented what we think is the position of politicians, the church has always responded without any commitment saying that they will get back to us.”

— Mr. Nakacinda.