President Hakainde Hichilema says Zambia is making enormous strides as a democratic country.
Speaking at the Democracy Delivers event hosted by the United States Agency for International Development on the sidelines of the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Hichilema said after assuming office 14 months ago, the country was moving faster in terms of democracy.
“We all assumed public office to serve our people and we are aware of people’s expectations and aspirations,” he said.
“We are walking the talk in respect to principles of good governance. An aggressive and impartial fight against corruption. Corruption is a tax. Corruption is a thief. It steals school desks from kids, takes away medicines from hospitals and it has to be fought and we are doing just that,” President Hichilema said.
“We are also installing the rule of law. This is very important and just the general law and order which had basically broken down in the years past. Citizens got beaten, there is nothing of that since one year ago, basically across the country.”
President Hichilema said laws which constrain the democratic space were being amended such as the Public Order Act, a colonial piece of legislation which crippled campaigns.
“We are now amending it to create freedoms for people. Defamation of the President which has been used to stifle space of the opposition, we are taking that up.”
“More importantly for this platform, we are ending the Death Penalty completely and we are just amending the laws to this effect,” said President Hichilema.
This is contained in a media statement released by First Secretary for Press and Public Relations at the Permanent Mission of Zambia to the UN Ms Namatama Njekwa.
