Posts in category: Uncategorized

By SHARON ZULU
THE Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have called for the government to embark on a review of the Constitution by providing a clear roadmap.

By MICHAEL MIYOBA
THE Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) has approved the MTN/FAZ Super League fixtures for the 2023-2024 soccer season.
The Zambia Premier League confirmed that the 2023/24 MTN Super League season will resume on August 19 with fixtures set to be rolled out on July 7, 2023.
Zambia Premier League Manager Brian Mulenga confirmed the development in a statement issued to all the clubs after the FAZ executive committee approved the fixtures for the new season.
Mulenga said the Charity Shield fixture involving Super League champions Power Dynamos and ABSA Cup champions Forest Rangers will kick off the new season which promises to be very competitive as Power Dynamos will be aiming to defend their league title.
The Charity Shield match will be played on August 12 at a venue yet to be confirmed by the Premier League.
“The league will commence on August 19. Fixtures will be communicated on Friday, July 7, 2023, when the playoffs have been concluded and the new entrants to the National Division One are confirmed and the fixtures have been approved by the FAZ executive committee and the ZPL Board,” Mulenga said.
Meanwhile, Mpulungu Youth and Quatro Kalumbila have won promotion to the National Division One League after finishing first and second respectively in Group A of the National Division One playoffs played in Lusaka.
Mpulungu came from behind to beat Luena Buffaloes 3-1 thanks to goals from Peter Kolala, Anthony Chanda, and Donald Kampamba in the final Group A fixture which was played at Edwin Imboela Stadium to claim first position in Group A with eight points on par with second-placed Quatro Kalumbila who stunned Nakonde Town Council 1-0 in their final group game.
Group A had three teams that finished the playoffs unbeaten with eight points. However, Chipata United missed out on promotion as they had a lower goal difference compared to Kalumbila and Mpulungu who had a goal difference of three goals while Chipata had two goals.
Until the final day of the playoffs, Chipata were on top in Group A after they picked two wins and two draws having scored four goals and conceded two.
ZTTA celebrates two bronze medals

By NATION REPORTER
ZAMBIANS should report any filling station that does not have petrol because the country has adequate fuel supplies, Energy Minister Peter Kapala has said.

Hungry ticks have some slick tricks. They can zoom through the air using static electricity to latch onto people, pets and other animals, new research shows.

WE feel both Justice Minister Mulambo Haimbe and his Home Affairs and Internal Security counterpart Jack Mwiimbu have a flawed argument in dismissing observations by the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) raising concern about increased human rights abuses and violations under the UPND government.
Both Mr Haimbe and Mr Mwiimbu claim that the new dawn administration has an open-door policy, in essence meaning LAZ and anyone aggrieved, should engage the government than raise issues in public.
But having an open-door policy should not mean that people should turn a blind eye when things go wrong in the country.
LAZ, in expressing its concern about the worsening incidents of police brutality against citizens was merely reacting to the concerns raised and are in the public domain. They are based on facts.
If anything, LAZ should not be a closed shop for the elite in society but should respond to concerns raised by the public especially those bordering on the rule of law.
It should not be “business as usual” when citizens are abducted by heavily armed men in plain clothes only to resurface hours later at a police station where they had been arrested.
That is not right.
Yet, this is the ordeal that Emmanuel Mwamba, the Patriotic Front deputy chairman for information and publicity suffered recently when about nine plain-clothed police officers seized him from a car wash in Lusaka.
For over 24 hours, his family, friends, and lawyers did not know where he was, running from one police station to another through the night looking for him.
At the end of it all, he was charged with assaulting a police officer.
In Petauke, a PF blogger, Rizwan Patel, disappeared for over a week without his family knowing his whereabouts until the police owned up that he was in custody.
There are numerous incidents in which those who served in the PF regime, accused of looting public resources have been arrested in a manner clearly designed to humiliate them.
As we have argued before, yes, the police have the mandate to arrest those suspected of committing crimes. But it is the manner in which that mandate is being abused that people are complaining about.
LAZ president Lungisani Zulu said the association was deeply concerned with the increasing trends of police brutality and therefore strongly condemned the recent incidences of police cruelty against persons believed to be members of opposition political parties.
Mr Zulu said that LAZ found it unfortunate that the Zambia Police was brutalizing citizens and that the association was concerned as such human rights violations had the potential of eroding democratic gains the country continued making.
Moreover, Mr Zulu’s statement came in the wake of a statement by Inspector General of Police Graphael Musamba who threatened opposition political party leaders with the unconventional minimum force during arrests if they will not tone down in criticizing the new dawn administration or cooperate with the Zambia Police.
The two statements should have been condemned by both Mr Haimbe and Mr Mwiimbu for they clearly go against the tenets of a democratic society.
It should not be for the Inspector General of police to decide how the opposition should criticize the government, certainly not when they do so within the confines of the law, threatening them with “appropriate” punishment if they do not tow the line..
LAZ is right to take the new dawn administration to task over human rights violations especially that it campaigned on the ticket of restoring the rule of law.
And Mr Haimbe and Mr Mwiimbu, as senior lawyers are among those who were forthright in decrying the lawlessness perpetrated under the former regime, including a compromised Zambia Police Service.

By Lucy Phiri

CENTRAL African Media Network (CAMNET) chairman, Pastor Moses Chiluba has told the Lusaka magistrate court that former Patriotic Front (PF) secretary general Davies Mwila made payments amounting to K252,000 to his station for adverts.

Scientists have discovered a genetic variant linked with multiple sclerosis becoming more debilitating over time, in research hailed as a first step towards a new drug.

By GRACE CHAILE
THE Citizens First Party has sued the Registrar of Societies and the Attorney General, challenging the refusal to effect amendments to its constitution.

The party through its General Secretary, Mr Wisdom Mulizwa, has sought judicial review seeking the Lusaka High Court’s order quashing the decision and or refusal by the Registrar of Societies to accept or effect the amendments to the constitution of the Citizens’ First Party as amended by the party’s general conference held on November 19, 2022.
It is alleged that the refusal to accept the revised constitution was based on the purported criminal investigations by the Zambia Police Service and other investigative agencies without according to the party the right to be heard.
In an affidavit verifying facts in support of ex parte summons for leave to apply for judicial review, Mr Mulizwa stated
The party held a conference in Ndola on November 19, 2022, at Park Lodge, where the proposed amendments were debated and approved.
He said on January 30, 2023, he submitted a copy of the amended constitution to the Registrar of Societies.
“That on June 14, 2023, I received a letter from the first respondent refusing to accept the submitted amendments and demanding that the applicant proves that meeting did actually take place as investigations by the Zambia Police Service had proven to the contrary,”
“That on June 21, 2023, the first respondent to the letter stating that the investigations by the police have revealed that the Citizens’First Party had actually committed a criminal offense,” he submitted.
Mr Mulizwa said the police had at no time informed him or the party of the alleged criminal investigations.
He, therefore, stated that it was unfair and unjust for the Registrar of Societies to base her refusal to accept the party’s amendments on the alleged investigations which were unknown to him as a suspect in the matter.

…but Jack Mwiimbu tells PF lawmakers the police could have been looking for two legislatures evading a bench warrant as Speaker Mutti clarifies their presence.

By Nation Reporter
A BATTALION of armed police officers yesterday besieged Parliament premises with some stationed right at the entrance to the National Assembly building in circumstances Home Affairs and Internal Security Minister explained as looking for two Members of Parliament (MPs) whom he claimed were evading a bench warrant.

PARAMOUNT Chief Mpezeni of the Ngoni in Eastern Province says Government should take advantage of debt restructuring to attend to the developmental needs of the country.