UPND MEDIA TEAM OFFICIAL , AMOS CHANDA, CLARIFIES HIS ASSOCIATION WITH UPND

…AS HE DISMISSES ASSERTIONS THAT HE IS IN TO SHIELD HIS COURT CASES.

Tuesday, 22 April, 2025

Former Special Assistant to President Edgar Lungu, and now United Party for National Development (UPND) member, Amos CHANDA, has dismissed assertions that he has decided to offer consultancy services to the UPND because of his Court cases.

Mr. CHANDA has stated that the Drug Enforcement Commission deals solely with cases bordering on narcotics and money laundering, which his cases do not alien to.

Speaking on RADIO PHOENIX’s Tuesday edition of ‘LET THE PEOPLE TALK PROGRAM, Mr. CHANDA says that he has been charged with stealing Court documents and using insulting language. He has wondered how the Law enforcement agencies specialized in dealing with narcotics and money laundering could spend three years on a misfiled Court record.

“How have these specialized agencies, one specially constituted to deal with narcotics and money laundering spend three years on a misfiled court record?” Mr. CHANDA asked.

“How is it that there is this Spirited attempt by a specialized government agency spending close to a million dollars to prosecute a misfiled Court record?” He asked.

Mr. CHANDA has stated that his insulting case has a search warrant dated August, 2016, and was served in August 2021 by the Anti-corruption Commission, adding that there were three people charged  in that case, and that he has not been rearrested where accused three was arrested, which case started in 2019.

“So there is absolutely no truth in relating my freedom of association through any circumstances that I’m facing. I could be facing a legal suit in the Civil case about debt, about libel; how is that related to deciding that I’m a consultant for a Media team?” Mr. CHANDA wonders.

Mr. CHANDA emphasizes that the freedom to associate and dissociate is not predicated on anything in one’s past, present or the future—it’s just a decision.

He says if he and the UPND Media team have a likemind and a common ground where they converge, he has the right and decision as a free citizen to work with the team.

He said that freedom to associate is supreme, and superior to the ACC Act or the penal code. Mr. CHANDA says the freedom to assemble and associate with people of like-mind is also superior and is contained in the Bill of Rights.

He says that it cannot be premised on the fact that he waits for years to associate with others before his cases are disposed of.

“It cannot be premised on the fact that I should wait 10 years before those cases finish”, Mr. CHANDA says.

Mr. CHANDA said that this is the right time for him to associate, adding that he has been on sabbatical from 2019, and the circumstances under which this association has come about leaves him to wonder because he doesn’t know which Patriotic Front party to associate himself with because the PF he knew is unrecognizable.

“Hypothetically, would you recommend that you would be happier to find me with Robert Chabinga’s PF, or Miles Sampa’s PF, oh, there’s another PF under President Lungu—in short, which PF must I stick to at the moment?” Mr. CHANDA wonders.

Mr. CHANDA questions how a turn of  events around the Patriotic Front shouldn’t be a legitimate reason to dissociate because he couldn’t put a finger on which PF to associate himself with. He says that individuals make decisions based on many factors, one of which is that the PF he knew is unrecognizable.

“It doesn’t matter if the decision I make takes me to Citizens First, it takes me to Socialist Party,  it takes me to Heritage Party, it doesn’t matter! There’s free entry and free exit within the realm of freedom of association and assembly is precisely the constitutional rights available to citizens, is that they decide as they please, as long as that is not unlawful”, Mr. CHANDA says.

Mr. CHANDA, has said members within UPND who are opposed to his association with the party have a democratic right to do so arising from the feelings that he made strong statements against the UPND when in opposition; assuming that the plus one vote on the fifty percent threshold one vote is Amos CHANDA, would those people still disapprove of his association with them? He says he fully understands their dissatisfaction and resentment.

Mr. CHANDA has since reacted to the concerns on the proposed constitutional amendments by opponents of government that there is no Law within which amendments can be made prior to the elections. He says that a democratic mandate of an elected government is from day one to the last day. He has wondered how one would prescribe that one year before election, the government has lost its legitimacy, describing the situation as chaotic even at two and half years.

“If the tensions are up that we are one year before election, and therefore Laws must not be passed within that period, then let’s have a Law that states that. There’s a government between day one, and the last day of the Democratic five-year mandate, and therefore I don’t see a very much logic that, on the basis that 2026 is elections, then no Laws must be passed,  constitutional amendment, no?” Mr. CHANDA says.

(C) UPND MEDIA TEAM