By Patson Chilemba
Chilubi member of parliament (PF) Mulenga Fube says he will follow through on three of his options, including raising the motion of impeachment against President Hakainde Hichilema for removing dismissed district commissioners from the payroll and thereafter secretly reinstating them, after he raised the matter in parliament.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Fube said President Hichilema and his administration have admitted that they abrogated the law by secretly reinstating district commissioners on the payroll after, he raised concerns on the matter that the law had been breached that the government stopped paying them without settling their gratuities first as stipulated in the law.
He said article 2 of the constitution gave every Zambian the right and duty to defend the constitution and be able to resist and prevent a person from abrogating the constitution.
Fube said even if the PF did not have the numbers to impeach the President on their own, the collective conscience of all the members of parliament should be alive to his argument that the President and his administration broke the law he swore to uphold upon being sworn in to office as President.
“I have the option like raising the motion of impeachment and judicial review. I started this and I have not given up. I am still speaking to you because I stand on that…by removing them from the payroll and after raising the issue they take them back on the payroll, it means they have abrogated the law,” Fube said. “My avenue is to push for the motion for impeachment, go to the public protector and (also) judicial review. For this particular one I will make sure I bring up this.”
Fube continued.
“They have admitted that they abused the law by bringing the DCs back…when the President is sworn in he swears to protect the constitution. He abused the constitution on that,” Fube said.
He added that since the government was boasting that they had settled all the retirees, they should do the same with the DCs and other civil servants they fired by quickly settling their gratuties and benefits and remove them from the payroll, in order to save the much needed public resources. Fube said as things were, the government was paying the current district commissioners and other civil servants while also paying those they have dismissed.
Fube said he had information that only a fraction of fired district commissioners in Eastern, Lusaka and North Western provinces have been paid, while the others were still awaiting their benefits.
He said the UPND was boasting that they had settled terminal benefits for retirees, arguing that when the PF formed government they found 22,000 unpaid retirees and managed to reduce the number to 3000 at the time of leaving office.
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