Church-led dialogue is dead, stop wasting your time’

And YALI president Andrew Ntewewe says his organisation supports section 18 of the dialogue bill as it protects would be participants from being victimised by their organisation.

Speaking at press briefing Ntewewe said it was baffling that individuals whom he described as the former members of the disbanded grand coalition have been pushing for a church dialogue which is a dead process as it did not have a have legal backing.

He said it is illogical for the opposition alliance and the CSOs to refuse to participate in a process that has the protection of the law as the so called church dialogue lacked not only the legal backing but that it did not have a chance to agenda.

“Therefore, as indicated, this briefing  is meant to warn Zambians not to buy into fake interpretations and misconceptions being peddled by the Church, the UPND-led Opposition Alliance and former members of the now defunct Grand Coalition.

“In the past week, they have been reading from the script, with the same flimsy excuses! They have all been telling Zambians that they should prefer a church-led dialogue!

“What is the agenda of the same dialogue? What are the guidelines, composition and the rules governing the same dialogue? Zambians have been told that the church has consulted widely; who have the church consulted and when did they consult? Is the church in its current condition even in a position to handle the reconciliation on the political scene when the church’s own leaders are so very deeply divided? Does this same church-led dialogue have a legal framework? Is it guided by law?”

Ntewewe said the country cannot continue to procrastinate over the issue of dialogue and Constitution reforms.

“We can not continue to procrastinate as a country! Time is of the essence! The 2021 elections are around the corner, the Zambian people do not subscribe to constant bickering and simply talking; they want the governance reforms like yesterday!

Zambians do not need a public talk show, they want results through effective reforms!!

“The church-led dialogue has failed because one side wants to dictate to the other and will not allow the other side to bring in another “shibukombe” with whom they feel comfortable. Now, what kind of mediation is it where one side chooses the mediator who then dictates the terms of the process? That is what UPND and the church have done. Why, they have refused to disclose the source of funds or the donor of those funds, they have refused to disclose to all the parties to the dialogue who this mysterious donor is, how much money was given and how the money will be managed,” he said.

He also said YALI supports section 18 of the Dialogue Bill saying the section is necessary to ensure that the process does not suffer a repeat of the NCC were MPs were with drawn from participating in the process.

“Our question is; should one clause in the entire bill render the bill dictatorial, and does it justify the level of antagonism that has been generated by this group of protagonists? Can the whole bill be thrown away on the basis of one clause?

“Our view is that the clause is derived from past experiences where leaders of the opposition have sometimes done the unthinkable of stopping MPs from performing their constitutional duties simply for egoistic reasons and the personal interestsoof their leaders. We have witnessed MPs being suspended or expelled for undertaking national duties.

“This is a blatant violation of the rights of citizens to fully participate in national matters,” said the YALI boss.

He added “As we conclude we once again call on our people not to be hoodwinked by greedy politicians and some selected few CSOs. This governance reform agenda is here and all citizens and stakeholders must fully participate for the good of our great country! The misinformation and misconceptions are well calculated to mislead the Zambian citizens so that they do not support the reform agenda just like it was on the referendum on the bill of rights! We urge all citizens not to be swayed but to effectively participate in this process.”