The Zambian government has presented a Bill to the National Assembly seeking to change the law to enable President Rupiah Banda qualify for a gratuity at the end of his less than three-year reign.
According to the current laws, only a person who has served for a minimum of three years of the five-year presidential tenure is entitled to gratuity.
However, Vice-President George Kunda presented to Parliament the Presidential Emoluments (Amendment) Bill without the minimum specified period of three years service for Mr Banda to be entitled to gratuity.
Mr Banda became president on November 2, 2008 after a by-election held to replace Levy Mwanawasa, who died mid-term in August 2008, and complete his remaining years of the five-year tenure.
President Banda, 74, who is running for re-election in polls, which he says will be held before September this year, would have served three years by November 1. Therefore, according to the current law, he does not qualify for gratuity unless it is changed.
Mr Banda, who was the Vice-President of Mr Mwanawasa, was embroiled in controversy shortly after his election when he increased emoluments for himself and other constitutional office holders amidst public disapproval.
[ africareview.com ]
this is st.upid! why shpuld everything be changed to suit this big bafoon! if he doesnt qualify then he doesnt! mwempupu mwe!
Please MP’s for once do the riight thing by throwing out this silly bill you can not change laws for one man when a lot of Zambians are suffering?
Where are the Opposition parties, NGOs, Law Association of Zambia, and basically all Zambians.
The bafoons running the country have taken the people of Zambia for granted.
Political circus continues in zambia.So george wants the law to changed to suit RB?? Zambian leaders are shameless i.d.i.o.t.s.-especially GK.You can aswell be making changes(ammndments) regarding the PVT you f.o.o.l.I dont understand this, RB announces that elections will be held in september,hitherto,he would not have reached the minimum requirements for his gratuity,then you want to change the law??after all he has the sole authority too choose even after 1st november.Is george kunda a layer? it must be easy to become a lawyer-nay-state counsell in zambia.With that knd of reasoning, GK and RB makes a pre school teacher look like a professor.
If the law is unfair or wrong, correct it. I am sure ALL MPs will support it you will be surprised.
Makes a lot of sense too, the President has served Zambia and so deserves a gratuity, unless we had law whcih allowed the president who has passed on to share the five year gratuity in proportion to the years served.
Obviously when the law was made the authorities never thought that any of our presidents would die in office mid term. You could see it from the way Levy’s funeral was organised. Poliics aside, to me it’s just an oversight which must be corrected legally.
this is the problem with african leaders always want to enrich themselves, no heart for the people. I think this nonsense has been tolaterated for a long time now
“Mr Banda, who was the Vice-President of Mr Mwanawasa, was embroiled in controversy shortly after his election when he increased emoluments for himself and other constitutional office holders amidst public disapproval. [ africareview.com ]”
No you are wrong africareview.com, don’t base your stories on hearsay from bloggers. If I remember well, the President sent that bill back to Parliament, and Parlaiment passed it again. By our laws the President must now sign or dissolve parliament and hold fresh elections. Imagine that! The wise alternative was what RB did, give his assent, after all the people’s representatives had spoken and he is not a dictator like others.
#5 H.H. Sata – Iwe mumbwe, if RB passes a law for men to walk naked, Iam sure you can support it and give fooolish explanations. This guy RB is out to make himself rich. He doesnt want to go back to the days when he used to drink from the bar after receiving money from his children through the Post Office. What work, he just stood as some president not that we forced him to
H.H Sata.
The rate at which u blog for MMD/Rbish makes me wonder if u are not a ShuShu or on govt.payroll for one reason or another.
Why do we to tailor the law to suit an individual? MMD & RB are destroying the country at such an alarming rate. If this is not plundering, what else can it be called?
Their removal from govt will save us from being driven into the inevitable abyss.
Rupiah knows he only has a few months in office before the new govt comes in.
I hope the new govt’s first act will be to stop this looting of the resources by this rupiah mambala
So every President will have his own amendments. WTF?
The president is being greedy. Every job has specified remuneration, and RB was well aware that if he ran for election, he would not serve the 3 years required to get gratuity. If he didn’t like that provision, he should not have applied for the position. You can not agree terms and conditions with your employer and then seek to amend them just before you leave office, hoping to scam off the employer. This is what the president is doing. This is daylight robbery!
this is uneccessary for the govt to do. RB in any case has a very good pension if he loses elections or retires after the second term
Isnt this story the headline in today’s POST. So you find it difficult to quote the POST but still indirectly quote the POST by quoting a source that quoted the POST. Oh my God I am now sounding like Sir Humpries in ‘Yes Prime Minister’!
I will consider politics to pay my debts. It is a lucrative career.
Paying Rupiah for what? Having wasted our precious time….. If you didn’t make your money during normal working life.. before 55, they waitaya. Just go to the farm, HUMPTY DUMPTY
this is unfair. Keep the law as it is. Amend nothing.
Oh! Why? Oh why? Your Excellency you do not need so much money! Please, I beg you do not do this because, you will alienate people. Stop it now!
This is because if in the event he loses the elections he has gratuity that makes no sense. As a former president we shall support him anyway.
Why do we even have opposition MPs? I thought there were enough of them to block crazy laws from even leaving comittee stage. Again I ask UPND and PF vuvuzelas on LT are you MPs compitent enough to understand their strength of veto.
Mwenso uyu ba RB. He knows he will go this year but wants to ensure he has the same package (which he doesnt qualify for) as Chiluba. Thieves! The MMD has always made laws for specific presidents from 1991. They wanted to bar KK from standing so they introduced parentage of presidential candidates as a requirement. They want to introduce degree holders for presidency to bar Sata but we wont allow them or Tunisia will come to Zambia
It shows that he has fear he may not win the elections, so wants to cover himself financially. Dont these guys get big pensions and free house after they have served as presido?
It is strange that we always blog on partisan lines. We need to appreciate that ours is a dynamic society of laws. If a law is bad it certainly needs to be changed. RB has served as president and therefore needs to get his gratuity. What we are failing to accept is that we lacked foresight when we made this law.
Foolish…change retirement age so that we also get our had earned money paid to chi NAPSA
That’s why IFWE NI PABWATO AND SATA come rain come what weather.
VIVA SATA 2011.
i know politicians like money, i mean – they love money!! but for once MMD parliamentarians please could you help us by refusing to pass this amendment – vote on principle rather on party line. Rupiah does NOT NEED a few more Kbillions. the people of Zambia are in need
Laws are laws… if you don’t qualify according to the law then you don’t period. Its like when a female employ gets pregnant when she doesnt qualify for Maternity leave, do you repel the law to suit her? nay! If he wants his gratuity so much let him set the date for elections to a day that makes him qualify for one.
benefits of those who never work for things they use every slight prevalage to enrich themselves and their families.good loving zambians especially parliamentarians lets fight the vice.
I need to be educated, If RB does not qualify for gratuity, does it mean he does not qualify for his pension?
If he qualifies for his pension then he must shut up.
This is about receiving gratuity for ones work. Any one in any office including the presidents office deserves something after working in that position. Think about it. Working and not getting a gratuity surely it is unfair. Lets put politics aside and think about it objectively. No pension if one works for a period less than three years in office, something surely needs to be done. There are people who work on one year contracts and get gratuity. And in any case who’s fault is it that the current president could serve less than three years?
RB is frantically preparing for himself knowing the election presure is hot. Open your eyes those of who vuvuzelaling that he will win 2011. You will remain in the cold. He kows he may not make it and he is busy making way for himself.
RB knows what he is doing! You cannot be an African President and leave office poor. Even FTJ thinks he still has $8m more to his credit. A mansion has yet to be built and furnished for him.Wouldn’t you like to be a president even for less than 3 years ?
Bangwele, have u ever worked for nothing. Why do you talk SH***t when its on yo friends. Nganimwebo you would be kicking and screeming. Banda will have to get his gratuity. And the oso a second term. Then gratuity again after second term. Everyone gets it.
Rupiah Banda is a selfish and greedy man who does not have the heart for poor Zambians apart from his belly. This should be a warning to doubting Thomases in Zambia that Rupiah banda is up to no good at all!!!!
The man is there only to appease his children, Chiluba, investors and not Zambians.
God help us that this Monster called Rupiah Banda can be voted out of power!!!
#7 H.H. Sata,
Your quoting sounds the same as for Mr.Capitalist. You are the ones who are abusing governments resources in the name of MMD and RUPIAH BANDA your paying master.
You are the same as Lifwekelo and Chifre who have betrayed Zambians for 30 pieces of silver. Your monsters and murderers of Zambians.
Do you really think Zambians are happy with the way they are suffering? We Zambians are not the same as those of RUPIAH BANDA’S time of the 1960’s who were easily deceived and taken advantage of. Your actions will only make Zambians to revolt against the MMD and vote them out of power.
Your heartless animals!!!!
This is so silly,how does a well meaning person change the law just to suit himself?Tjis government is so greedy & cruel to the impoverished zambians.Mps please help us on this one.As for you H H SATA(comment 5),am so dismayed with your comment.Gratuity is given on completion of contract not satisfactory but imcomplete performance of a contract.If your thinking is that shallow then you do not deserve to post on this forum.This is criminal.These guys(MMD) are worse than Sadam Bin laden & Gadaffi all of them combined in the way they are killing people with no remorse.
Though it may seem unfair, I feel that RB deserves to receive a gratuity as well. If he had lost the elections in 2008 i.e. only served as a caretaker President during the constitutionally required 3 month period following ba Levy’s demise, he would not have qualified. However he stood and “won” a mandate of his own, albeit for only 3 years. In addition however, I’d also prefer to see each president bequeath a proper legacy in the “home town”, like the libraries the the USA build for each of their presidents. Building them homes only benefits their families….
Lets look at it this way…Do MP’s who get to Parliament after a bye-election midway through the life of Parliament get a gratuity? If they do then its fair that a President also gets his. This was then can be termed an oversight on our law makers. In addition, do we have provision for a Presidential Burial expense check list? I hear we spent close to K20 billion on Mwanawasa’s funeral? Why dont we give give K10 billion to a serving President’s gratuity? Fair is fair.
What is the use of regulations if you keep bending them?
Look at how low the response is pertaining to this article? people would rather discuss Sata’s opinion on gays? who cares if your neighbor is straight, gay , lesbian? as long as they keep their distance? We should fight this kind of plunderer? shame on our fortune seekers?
How can you amend the constitution just to suit one person (RB), where is the opposition? Even the MMD members are a disappointment, they seem to agree on everything, this man is UNIP and you the MMD are being taken for a ride? Shame on you?
I think all those people in government or elsewhere may cry for the same benefits they do not deserve. If you do not qualify why force matters. How many people have died without even tasting their on sweat?… and here is a man who has no manyazi and wants cash that do not even belong to him and he does not deserve that either. I wish Mwanawasa did not die. I cry my beloved president Mwanawasa.