.SIMBYAKULA

By DELPHINE ZULU and CHARITY MOONGA –

NEWLY appointed Justice Minister Ngosa Simbyakula will prioritise studying of the released Constitution roadmap.
Dr Simbyakula said in an interview yesterday that the document was in the public domain and that President Edgar Lungu had made it clear that his Government had pledged to finalise the document before the next elections.
“I will be in the office by today (Yesterday) and the first thing am going to do is to immediately start studying the roadmap, the President already stressed the need to have the constitution in the possible quickest time,” Dr Simbyakula said.
The Justice minister has since pledged to engage stakeholders in order to come up with a consensus on how best the roadmap would be used to expeditiously come up with a new Constitution.
He said the document was not an issue for the Government alone but all Zambians.
“The important thing is to engage the stakeholders because it will be a people-driven Constitution, this means Zambians must be involved and it should not be only for Government as it can raise suspicion. So we need to go together when following the road map,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Grand Coalition on the constitution-making process has appealed to Government to prioritise the Constitution and avoid making partial amendments to the document.
Grand Coalition spokesperson McDonald Chipenzi said the Constitution should be prioritised more than any other issues.
Mr Chipenzi said Zambia needed to repeal the Constitution and completely overhaul it to preserve human rights for the benefit of all Zambians.
The Coalition would continue to promote the ‘No Constitution, No Votes’ campaigns for the 2016 general elections.
He said this time around the coalition would launch the campaign early to ensure it was more effective.