Finnish envoy slammed over LAZ

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 13:22:34 +0000

By CHARLES MUSONDA

IT is unfortunate for Finnish Ambassador Timo Olkkonen to comment on issues he least understands, the PF has charged

Mr. Olkkonen told a local private radio station on Saturday that President Lungu must allow the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) to discharge its duties professionally and that it was wrong for the Head of State to attack the professional body which was executing its duties professionally.

But in an interview in Lusaka yesterday, PF Media Director Sunday Chanda said in as far as the matter relating to the Finnish ambassador, the responsible ministry (Foreign Affairs), should inform the envoy that it was unacceptable for him to comment on matters he least understood.

“He must understand that the Law Association of Zambia is not a civil society movement. The Law Association of Zambia is a creation of Parliament and there is an Act to that effect. The Law Association of Zambia is a public body that must be held accountable,

“It is a public body whose decisions can be questioned by anyone including the ruling party and we have maintained that the opinion that came from LAZ was not a legal opinion but a speculative opinion,” Mr. Chanda said.

He said LAZ’s opinion on the invocation of Article 31 by President Lungu’s exposed the association’s appetite to criticise the government even when there was no need to do so.

“LAZ went out of what the association must be doing in terms of providing clear legal opinion on matters of national importance. What LAZ did was to undermine and trivialise the consistent fires, acts of sabotage and arson that we saw. For LAZ, it did not make sense that people lost property and livelihood out of the City Market fire,

“If you have a Finnish ambassador who is going to say that certain things cannot be done then it becomes totally unacceptable and we shall not condone that,” said Mr Chanda