‘CHURCH, CSOS DECEITFUL ON BILL 10’
PARLIAMENT
should exercise its authority to enact the Constitution Amendment Bill number 10 of 2019 and not listen to the deceit of some church and civil society organisations, Young African Leaders Initiative ( YALI) president Andrew Ntewewe has said.
Mr Ntewewe said it was disappointing that the Church had been calling on Government to slow down the process of enacting Bill 10.
"Instead of promoting courteous discussions aimed at least moving closer to a much wider consensus than what has already been achieved, we note that institutions such as the Church and civil society organisations kept shooting in the air and took a very antagonistic position on Bill 10," Mr Ntewewe said in a statement.
Mr Ntewewe said Parliament remained the only body that must find common ground in cleaning the Bill.
He said the church with other stakeholders had deliberately tried to dilute the consensus arrived at through the Parliamentary Select Committee Report.
"In the absence of genuine leadership by civil society bodies such as the church and its failure to put in place mechanism for bridging the gap between the two divergent viewpoints, it has only become necessary that the people’s representative in Parliament now seek to find a common ground," he said.
He said YALI no matter how much time was given for Bill to undergo further consultations, nothing more would change.
Consultations on the Constitution, he said, had been going on since 2017 and large consensus had been reached.