Deferment of bills

Advocates for Democratic Governance Foundation (ADEG) has urged the government to draw lessons from past failed legal reform processes which neglected stakeholders’ submissions.

Welcoming the deferment of the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) Bill 6 of 2025 to allow for broader stakeholder consultations.

The government introduced the Non-Governmental Organisations Bill, 2025, on March 11, aims to repeal and replace the existing Non-Governmental Organisations’ Act, 2009 to improve the registration, licensing, and co-ordination of NGOs while enhancing their transparency and accountability. 

The bill also introduced mechanisms to prevent the misuse of NGOs for illicit activities, such as terrorism financing. 

But civic leaders and activists raised serious concerns, describing it as a direct threat to Zambia’s democratic values and civil liberties.

On Wednesday, Community Development minister Doreen Mwamba said the government deferred the implementation of Bill 6 of 2025 to allow for wider consultations with stakeholders and adjustments to the draft law.

But she cautioned that the decision to delay the Bill should not be seen as abandonment, but as a deliberate move to ensure inclusivity.

It is very welcome and commendable that Mwamba and those in government have decided to defer the bill for wider consultation.

However, it should raise a lot of concern to those in the government that most of the bills they are coming up with are usually facing very steep opposition leading to their deferment. This calls for them to seriously reflect in terms of the manner they are going about trying to enact some of these laws, as what is coming out clearly is that the way they see things is not exactly the same way those on the receiving end view them.

It is clear that there has been a complete turnaround in the manner they view matters now as compared to when they were in the opposition. It seems they are now driven by the motivation to protect their interests in power while limiting the rights of the other stakeholders in the country.

There is now an insatiable top-bottom desire where those in power want to create laws for the people they lead, something which is clearly being rejected.

The fact that the government is deferring most of these processes for more stakeholder consultations, is in itself an admission that there was the absence of meaningful stakeholder consultations in trying to formulate the laws they are coming up with. We hope going forward, they shall draw lessons to engage in meaningful stakeholder consultation before they introduce the bills before the floor of the house.

And there is actually no harm in scrapping off rather than deferring some of these processes when it has become abundantly clear that the general populace has rejected the path those in government are trying to drive towards. After all, they were elected to serve the same public which is rejecting the laws their servants in government are trying to have enshrined in the statute books. If the citizens have said no to the NGO bill, media bill or even the constitutional amendment bill for lack of meaningful stakeholder participation, just scrap the same off. You actually gain more public goodwill by so doing.

And we hope those in government are not deferring these bills to portray a semblance of stakeholder consultation with the ultimate aim of enacting the same things which are being questioned. We say so because of the harsh lessons the people received on the enactment of the cyber security bills, which were deferred only for the government to quickly rush them through Parliament for enactment into law.