HH Consults Traditional Leaders Over Constitutional Reforms

President Hichilema has stressed the vital role that Zambia’s traditional leaders will play in the forthcoming constitutional amendment process. He said this on Sunday when he met with 38 traditional leaders from the House of Chiefs at State House in Lusaka.

This constitutes part of an extensive series of stakeholder consultations that the government hopes will rigorously scrutinise the proposed changes and subject them to the highest degree of democratic accountability. Notably, this follows on from the Justice Ministry’s media breakfast earlier this month in which government spokespeople responded to journalists’ questions about the reforms.

The President took this opportunity to yet again categorically deny that his government intends to revise term limits, and reaffirm the ethos behind the proposals which is to create a fairer and more equitable Zambia.

One crucial subject that was addressed at the meeting was the constituency delimitation proposal, which is of special interest to the traditional leaders because their land holdings under Customary Law are affected by Zambia’s political boundaries. The President assuaged concerns and committed to maintaining a dialogue with the leaders about the boundary changes.

At the meeting Chief Choongo, the leader of the delegation, signalled his intent to collaborate with the government: “we the chiefs are interested in the constitution amendments, and we have many issues that we want to be resolved through the amendments. Our prayer is that we will be allowed to make an original submission at an appropriate time”.

The President granted this request and committed to maintaining an open and transparent dialogue with all stakeholders as the government continues to pursue these amendments.