By Agness Changala
PF lawyer Makebi Zulu has revealed that the reason the Register of Societies Thandiwe Mhende was removed from her position is because she was going to clarify everything relating to the change of PF office bearers when she takes the stand in court.
And Zulu says Speaker of the National Assembly Nelly Mutti abused her authority following confirmation from the government that new names of PF office bearers could not be changed due to challenges faced in completing the process.
On Tuesday, Home Affairs permanent secretary Dickson Matembo said as soon the process of changing PF office bearers is completed, the nation will be informed.
Asked what the correct position is since former president Edgar Lungu’s group had brought out information showing that the office bearers had not changed while Sampa’s group was also saying the Registrar of Societies had changed the office bearers with new ones, Matembo said, “The correct position is that the names were received. We only had challenges completing the process of updating and the nation will be informed. But the official names of the political leaders were received. We have them, yes.”
Reacting to this information, Zulu said the names were not changed because when officers went to close the secretariat, the police or whoever asked them to do so abused their authority.
He said all the security that was being given to Miles Sampa under the pretext that office bearers had been changed was an abuse of authority.
Zulu further said Mutti abused her authority with confirmation that the names were not changed when it was stated that in fact they were changed.
He explained that when one goes to the Registrar of Societies to change office bearers, they have to go with minutes of all the meetings that took place and who was in attendance.
He said Sampa and the team did not have these details and the Registrar of Societies has a party constitution which the speaker should have cared to ask if it was complied with.
“Was that complied with? If not, they will not change the names. They will ask you to go back and bring what you need to bring for them to be able to effect the changes,” Makebi said. “You may have noticed that there was correspondence between the Registrar of Societies and the party to effect certain changes and finger prints were cleared that are related to bena Nakachinda and … that process, we haven’t still exhausted that process. And the names haven’t been changed. It is impossible for Miles to think they can change names within two hours or one hour. It doesn’t happen that way because there are procedures that have to be followed.”
Zulu said even at the point of finger prints and they are saying there is change of office bearers, much of the vetting process is that those who were holding offices have to be interviewed, called and asked if it’s true that they no longer hold their positions.
“Was that done? No it wasn’t. Is there any person who was an office bearer who was called and asked? They didn’t do that. What sort of vetting was that? All this is marred with illegalities, procedural impropriety that do not suggest that anyone can easily go and change the names,” he said. “The process becomes effective upon the Registrar of Societies saying that yes you have complied with all your procedures. Merely submitting does not mean that there will be a change of office bearers.”
Zulu said in effecting changes, the registrar should be satisfied that the party has complied with its own constitution first, in dealing with changes and has complied with the law as well.
“So the question that has to be answered by the Registrar of Societies is that did these people comply with their constitution? The registrar can’t say no! I can’t say anything as regards the constitution because part of the things that you submit is the constitution of the party. So if the constitution says the convention should be chaired by the national chairman, the registrar would ask who chaired this convention. Who was there? That your constitution says there should be at least 600 people from each Province, where are these people. All those questions,” Zulu said.
And Zulu there was nothing wrong Mhende did for her to be removed from her office.
“The reason that woman was moved I will tell you. It is not because she did anything wrong. It is because when she takes the stand at court, she will clarify everything. Even assuming that they go and change the names today, we will still call the registrar and say come here, why did you change names, do you have a copy of the constitution, did you look at its provisions, did the political party fulfil the provisions? That’s why Miles is frantically going round the country trying to get names of office bearers,” said Zulu.
