GOVT NOT SINCERE ON HUNTING CONCESSIONS

...as minister maintains govt has not cancelled any signed HCA’s

GOVERNMENT should stop be ing insincere over the Hunting Concession Agreements (HCA’s) which they can celled because they were done by the previous re gime, former cabinet min ister George Mpombo, has indicated.

Mr Mpombo said the re cent statements by the min ister of Tourism, Mr Rodney Sikumba in Parliament that Government has not can celled any legally signed HCA’s with any hunting outfit was misleading because it was common knowledge that they had done away with all hunt ing licences.

And Zambia Republican Party president Wright Musoma said it was clear the UPND cancelled the conces sions because they wanted to fuse in their people.

Mr Musoma said the minister was not being sincere by claiming that the hunt ing concessions were not yet signed when everyone knew that they wanted to squeeze in their counterparts.

“What I can say is that the government is trying to do away with legally binding con cessions in a bid to include their friends and colleagues,” he said.

Mr Sikumba told parlia ment in a ministerial state ment that August 17, 2021 was a date set for the signing of the HCA’s at the Ministry of Tourism headquarters which was just days after the an nouncement of the results for the August 12, 2021 general elections which ushered in the new dawn administration un der the leadership of President Hakainde Hichilema.

Mr Sikumba said the min istry proposed and agreed to defer the signing ceremony of the hunting concession agreements to give the new government sufficient time to review the process that fol lowed before the parties could finally append signatures on the hunting concession agreements.

He said as such, no bidder paid the prescribed conces sion fees to the government for their applied hunting block.

But Mr Mpombo said this was just a façade because it was common knowledge that the reason the concessions were cancelled was because they were under the previous regime.

“The problem with this government is that there is too much inconsistencies and such is the case with the issue of the Hunting Concession Agreements which were done away with impunity,” he said.

The ministerial statement was as a result of a point of or der that was raised by Lumezi Member of Parliament, Munir Zulu who wanted to find out the status of the purported cancelled hunting concessions by the government.

Mr Sikumba said taking cognisance that the pro curement process or tender was initiated and guided by the provisions of the Public Procurement Act no. 8 of 2021 and that all undertak ings regarding the procure ment process were subject to the provisions of the procure ment act.

He said a Ministerial Procurement Committee (MPC) was called upon on April 29, 2022.

Mr Sikumba said the MPC meeting unanimously re solved to cancel the tendering process citing section 69 of the procurement act #8 of 2020 which provides to the effect that a procuring entity may, at any time, prior to notification of contract award, terminate or cancel procurement pro ceedings without entering into a contract if the subject procurement is overtaken by operation of law; or substan tial technological change.