Maravi

Zambians are free to hold leaders accountable, says Saasa

Zambians are free to hold leaders accountable, says Saasa
Written by Jackson Katilungu in Kabwe
Friday, March 20, 2009 2:43:53 AM

ZAMBIAN citizens are free to hold their national leaders accountable whenever they go beyond their limits, economic consultant Professor Oliver Saasa has said.

In his presentation on the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) discussion in Kabwe on Wednesday, Prof Saasa, who is also a member of the national governing council of the mechanism, said individual citizens should come out and state how best they should be governed.

The discussion marked the beginning of the self-assessment research of the APRM, which Zambia, through late president Levy Mwanawasa, acceded to on January 22, 2006 at the African Union (AU) summit held in Khartoum, Sudan.

"We should use the tenets of the APRM on democratic and political governance to guide and urge our national leaders as citizens to do right things correctly and not wrong things," Prof Saasa said.

He said the issue of good governance evolved among the Zambian people who should gauge themselves through the APRM to see whether the nation was being run according to their will.

"Governance is all about the citizens who have the power to elect leaders of course democratically; personally I don't think leaders impose themselves on the people because it is they (citizens) that elect them and so if they feel otherwise, they should work through the constitution to remove them from office," he said.

Prof Saasa said people had powers to change systems if they felt that their leaders were not working according to their satisfaction.

Thematic areas of the APRM hinge on ensuring good democratic and political governance, economic governance management, socio-economic development as well corporate governance. Under democratic and political governance, the APRM aims at creating democracies that would ensure the rule of law prevails, free, fair electoral processes operate, and that accountable, efficient and effective public administration exists.

And APRM national governing council chairperson Tamara Kambikambi said it was incumbent upon every Zambian to use the mechanism in place to measure issues of morality, the rule of law, fight against corruption as well as issues of good governance.

Kambikambi explained that the main purpose of the APRM was to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that would lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration.

Last month, APRM lead panelist for Zambia Graca Machel was in the country to check on progress regarding the initiative and said she was impressed with the strides made so far.

Labels: APRM, OLIVER SAASA

posted by MrK @ 2:44 AM