Thirty Patriotic Front (PF) Members of Parliament (MPs) have been suspended from the National Assembly for 30 days for breaching parliamentary privileges in accordance with section 22 of the powers and privileges Act.
In her ruling, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Attractor Chisangano, said this action has been taken in the wake of the behaviour the 30 MPs exhibited when they protested against the budget debate on head 101 in December last year, thereby disturbing parliamentary proceedings.
The suspension is effective today, 15th March 2022 and will go on until Wednesday 13th April 2022.
However, the suspension for Chawama (PF) Member of Parliament, Tasila Lungu, will run from Monday 21st March 2022 to 19th April 2020 as she is currently at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Committee in the United Kingdom with the Speaker of National Assembly, Nelly Mutti.
“In view of this, I wish to invoke the provisions of Section 28, part 2 of the National Assembly powers and privileges Act as follows; Number 28 part 2 states that where a member is found to have committed contempt of a serious nature and none of the other penalties are sufficient for the contempt committed by the member, the Speaker shall on the resolution of the Assembly, suspend the member from the Assembly for a period not exceeding 30 days,” she said.
In addressing the 30 suspended PF MPs, Ms. Chisangano said the House was extremely displeased by their gross misconduct of carrying out a protest in the chamber thereby disrupting the proceedings of parliament.
Ms. Chisangano stated that the dishonourable conduct diminishes the respect due to the members of the House as it is a House of Honour, decorum and dignity which commands exemplary conduct which is above reproach.
“I wish to make it clear that I will not tolerate gross indiscipline and misconduct from you or any member of the House. The honour, decorum and dignity of the House must be protected and preserved at all times,” she added.
The Deputy Speaker has since urged the suspended Members of Parliament to reflect seriously on their conduct and in future ensure that they behave in a manner befitting a Member of Parliament.
Ms. Chisangano also directed that the leader of the opposition, Brian Mundubile and Kamfinsa Member of Parliament Christopher Kangombe should cease to be members of the Privileges and Absences Committee with immediate effect following the protest in accordance with standing order number 190 number 6 of 2021.
“Honorable Members, according to Standing order 190 number 6 of 2021, any member of the committee found guilty of misconduct shall lose his or her membership to the committee with immediate effect”, she said.
She said the members to replace the two on the committee will be announced in due course.
Clamp down harder on them………
They want to bring the cader mentality that tortured zambia to parliament……..
These PF are like wild animals who would gladly see the breakdown of law and order in zambia
GREAT POST ABOVE ^^^^
I hope they will also forfeit any form of emoluments due to them within this 30 days?
Those PF thieves should just be banned as a political party.
Opposition in zambia is useless. I would rather we had a one party system under upnd.
How can someone be called Attractor? Isn’t there any other indigenous name your parents could have settled for? Was this a desperate attempt at having a European identity? Why continue with such absurdity?
The most useless government in history. They are cowards who are trying to turn this country into a d.l.c.tatorship. the only weapon they will get is death. Nature will deal with them. One by one they start dying
The most useless government in history. They are cowards who are trying to turn this country into a village . the only weapon they will get is death. Nature will deal with them. One by one they start dying
The most useless govt in Zambia’s history was 2011- 2021 under the much maligned PF party who’s regretful tenure regressed Zambia back 20yrs.
@ Kaizer Wishful Thinking
Kaizer, your party was the worst. If a people deserve your punishment and we go by your prediction, we should start seeing you and your PF colleagues start to drop dead. We are watching
PF is a very good party. How many times did upnd f00ls protest between 2011 – 2021?
Nothing was done to them because PF had mature and non-aligned speakers of the national assembly.
Upnd is the worst party we ever had in the history of mother Zambia.
One month suspension. Should have been TEN YEARS IN JAIL
Common sense should prevail. You can not have a quarter of parliament away on disciplinary grounds and expect to maintain the integrity,dignity and decorum of parliament. A very stern warning would have sufficed. The stupid thing with Africans is that because PF did it to us in 2017, we also do it to them now. What is the difference between the 2 useless camps then? This can never happen in a civilized nation because the citizens themselves would not allow allow such rubbish to happen, But look at you dull people supporting such a sick move.
Ba LT, why blocking all my comments?
Sad, both our speakers of the house have sunk too low to be nonpartisan, impartial and independent. The speakers are being paid for butchering our hard earned freedom of expression. Our speakers badly need to be lectured by Malema of South Africa for them to digest the basic roles of members of parliament. This is irresponsible ruling. The speakers are openly promoting a one party system under upnd.
UPND have shown that they themselves dont know how do govern ….how on earth do you suspend 30 MPs!!!!!!….what was HH thinking putting current Speaker…..Parliament is a place one should not be intimidated or scared to express themselves…..I respect HH but he needs to counsel his speaker….you want one party state now….Foolish move whether she acted within the law……..she can handle the heat give other Iron ladies…even in UK fists happen to extremes, am disappointed in UPND
Let us focus on collectively building Zambia. Unproductive criticisms will not take us anywhere.