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Green Party president, Peter Sinkamba, has called on President Hakainde Hichilema’s administration to avoid enacting laws to punish targeted individuals.
Sinkamba stated that if any leader enacted laws intended to punish targeted individuals, those that follow in leadership should promptly and graciously repeal such laws.
The Green Party leader in a statement issued in Lusaka on Tuesday, said if such leaders failed to do so, fate always punished them.
He stated that the case of former President Edgar Lungu, whose duly earned pension, had been withdrawn by government, was the textbook example of his thesis.
“Government has withdrawn the pension pursuant to Section 5(b) of the Benefits of Former Presidents Act, 1993, Chapter 15, as amended by Benefits of Former Presidents (Amendment) Act, 1998,” Sinkamba noted.
He said the Act, was enacted to punish the former leaders in Dr. Kenneth Kaunda’s government by repealing the State Leaders Retirement Benefits Act No. 5 of 1990 and the Political Leaders Retirement Benefits Act No. 6 of 1990.
Sinkamba noted that the implication of the repeal of the two laws was that no former Political or State leader that served in the first republican, other than Kaunda only, was entitled to payment of any retirement benefits.
“It did not matter whether that person claimed for benefits before or after the commencement of the Benefits of Former Presidents Act, 1993,” he stated.
Sinkamba insisted that Sections 7(2) and 7(3) of the Benefits of Former Presidents Act, 1993 were extremely draconian.
He said section 7(2) provided that any person who had received a pension or any benefit under any repealed Act before the commencement of the Act should have refunded to the government such pension and surrender the benefit received or the monetary equivalent of such benefit within six months of the commencement of the Act.
“Section 7(3) provided that where any proceedings to claim any pension or other benefit under any repealed Act had been instituted before the commencement of the Act, the court was directed, on the application of the Attorney General, to forthwith dismiss the claim,” Sinkamba cited.
He added that unfortunately, the Patriotic Front (PF) leadership did not review the Act, and sadly, its unjust effects had taken a toll on former President Edgar Lungu.
Sinkamba advised Hichilema to learn a lesson from what was happening to former President Lungu concerning the Benefits of Former Presidents Act, 1993 as amended in 1998.
“Second, during the tenure of his office, he should also repeal the provisions of law which seem to empower the Police to arrest critics of government,” he stated.
Sinkamba identified the Public Order Act as a piece of legislation which should be repealed and never to replace it, saying the State had sufficient laws to deal with criminality even if there is no Public Order Act.
“If he fails to repeal these provisions, there is a very degree of certainty that they will be unjustly used against him and his colleagues after 2026 elections or sometime in the near future,” the Green Party president warned.
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