By ADRIAN MWANZA
I HAVE written a petition to the Speaker requesting that Parliament investigates the abuse of the Constitution by President Hakainde Hichilema through his Special Assistant for Politics, Mr. Levy Ngoma, Democratic Party president, Harry Kalaba, has said.
Mr Kalaba in his letter, has requested for Parliament to investigate breach of the Constitution by the Republican President after an audio circulated involving Home Affairs Permanent Secretary Josephs Akafumba and Mr Ngoma.
He said the actions of the two public officers were not just a deposition against the Head of State but clearly implicated the President to be at the heart of the abuse of public office.
“Madam Speaker, the gravity of the accusations on the Head of State by his Special Assistant are so grave that we demand that Parliament constitute a team to investigate if indeed the Head of State had issued such instructions,” he said.
He said he had also copied the same letter to Chairperson of the Africa Union (AU) and Secretary to the Cabinet, Mr Patrick Kangwa.
Mr Kalaba said that on or around the January 19, 2022 a recording of a telephone conversation was circulated on one of the Television stations in which Mr Ngoma was heard discussing with Mr Akafumba abuse of office and disparaging the Electoral Commission of Zambia for acting professionally and without impartiality.
He said Mr Ngoma implicated the Republican President as a person of interest in the ongoing case of the DP, very clearly in the recording that he was instructed by the President in the presence of the Vice President to ensure that the Registrar of Society amended the letter that was issued to ECZ, in clear breach of the Law.
“The instruction to his Assistant Mr. Levy Ngoma which invariably constituted a breach of Article 91 Clause 3 paragraph (a), (c), (d), (e) and (f) of the Republican Constitution that defines among other things the responsibilities of the President. You will also appreciate that Article 108 Clause (1) and Paragraph (a) provides the grounds for impeachment of the Republican President for breach of the Constitution as outlined in Article 91,” he said.
Mr Kalaba said going by Mr Ngoma’s statement in the recording, it was clear that the President was in clear breach of Article 91 and by meddling in the internal affairs of an opposition party and thereby disenfranchising internal democracy and the right of association of those citizens who seek to follow the DP.
He said it was clear that the instructions by President Hichilema to his Special Assistant Mr Ngoma and the same instructions being carried out through the Permanent Secretary were indeed a clear reminder of the Watergate Scandal that took place in the United States and ultimately resulted in President Richard Nixon resigning as President of the United States of America on August 8, 1974.
“We are however alive to the fact that to expect that level of integrity in this case would be demanding too much of our President and it is against this background that we write to seek Parliament’s intervention to investigate this issue.
“The people of Zambia demand a higher level of transparency and it is only right that Parliament takes up the responsibility of investigating the President for issuing instructions to his Special Assistant that are in clear breach of the Republican Constitution, the very Constitution he swore an oath to protect and uphold,” Mr Kalaba said.
He also challenged the Speaker to look into the request to investigate the President on the abuse of his sworn oath through the two civil servants, and to look into the abuse of the Police Service that was at the behest of those in government even when morality demands that they follow the Law.
