GUESS NYIRENDA DEFENDS CSOS’ SILENCE

By Kalobwe Bwalya

IT is extremely untrue that Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have gone quiet regarding a number of issues that are happening in the country, Operation Young Vote (OYV) Executive Director Guess Nyirenda has said.

In an interview, Mr. Nyirenda said the CSOs were actually talking on behalf of Zambians and providing checks and balances with regards to everything that was happening in Zambia.

He explained that the Civil Society were on top of things be it on good or bad governance, corruption, unfair treatment or unprofessional conduct of the Zambia Police service as well as anything the Government was doing, which was not in line with the aspiration of the people.

He said the Civil Society was always there to protect the interests of the citizens and also to ensure that the Government was governing the country accordingly and without abrogating any laws of the land.

He stated that the Civil Society had begun to engage with the Government robustly on matters such as corruption and how certain things to do with the forfeiture of proceeds of crime must be done.

“For example, I have been on record opposing the forfeiture of proceeds of crime as the sole remedy to corruption. I believe that it is not enough to forfeit property believed to have been proceeds of crime, but it is also important that criminal prosecution is done on these found wanting and we have spoken about the unfair prosecution of the opposition political parties and the impartiality of the police.

“We have been talking about literally everything and if one or two people have not heard us, I don’t think it would be correct to alarm everyone and say that the Civil Society in the country has gone quiet because it is not true,” Mr. Nyirenda.

And Mr. Nyirenda castigated the unprofessional conduct of some police officers where law and order could not be maintained in the country.

He claimed that the law enforcers were selective in the manner they were executing their mandate which was only meant to silence the opposition political parties in Zambia.

“The Civil Society has not gone to sleep. There is no way organizations can go to slumber with everything that is happening in the country. This is what is making the Civil Society active in its own rights and we are not being biased or rather supporting anyone, but supporting what is correct and whoever does anything wrong, we will be there to criticize, ” he added.