Nevers Mumba has threatened to sue the Zambia Centre for Inter-party Dialgue (ZCID) for allegedly tempering with records at the Registrar of Societies and placing Felix Mutati as MMD president against court orders.

And Mumba has charged that the ZCID is not qualified to host the dialogue talks amongst political parties, saying the institution is biased and lacks the integrity and morality to bring politicians together.

On Tuesday, ZCID met the Felix Mutati led MMD faction ahead of the dialogue process.

When asked if the centre would also meet the Nevers Mumba camp, Sean Tembo, who spoke on behalf of the board chairperson during the meeting, said ZCID only recognized leaders who appeared on the Registrar of Society’s records.

“As ZCID, we go by the official records of the Registrar of Societies. Therefore, the only MMD officials that we know are those that appear on the Registrar of Societies records. If the Registrar of Societies officials records change, then we shall accordingly revise our recognition. It is not for us to try and interpret court judgements, whatever they are. The idea is to try and avoid getting embroiled in party internal wrangles that are before court,” said Tembo.

But in an interview, Mumba said ZCID had allegedly changed the party records at the Registrar of Societies in order to suit their needs.

He complained that the ZCID made their decision to recognise Mutati as MMD president without consulting him and without regard for the evidence to prove that Mutati was an illegal president who was voted for at an illegal convention.

“We are going to cite them for contempt of court, because they don’t lose anything by waiting until they get the court orders. What they are doing now is to be part of the criminality that has been brought before the court. By changing the names at the Registrar of Societies and by ZCID recognising the Mutati faction when they know that that faction was arising from a fake convention which has been challenged by [the] law and the Supreme Court has spoken to it. I think that the ZCID is dancing to some music, in that they have been compromised for them to be recognising an illegal group consistently. We have given them all the paper work of the court. So ZCID has no excuse when we do the contempt of court because they have all the paper work from court. They asked for it and we gave it to them, they have never called us back to discuss it. Now they are using their own power to recognise a faction which is really sad…it’s very sad. Whatever compromise they have reached is not in the interest of the nation,” Mumba said.

He asked the ZCID not to desist from the criminality of recognising Mutati as president of MMD and contact him for more information proving Mutati as an illegal president.

“We would like for them to quickly contact us so that we can give them all the information if they need anymore information than we have given them. The changing of the names at the Registrar of Societies is part of the criminality that has been brought before the country. What would they really lose by waiting for the courts to deal with this matter? What is the rush? Why are they in such a hurry? We don’t understand this,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mumba said ZCID was unqualified to host the dialogue talks among politicians because it had compromised and was siding with criminals.

“ZCID has been compromised and that’s why we have said that they are not even qualified to host the talks. Where will they get their morality from? They are siding with the criminals that have been sued in court, and yet they are saying that they can host negotiations and talks. How can they for instance; help to resolve the MMD issue if they were really a factor in Zambian politics? How can they help if they are blatantly siding with the faction that in any case has been losing cases ever since we started. What is their interest in the Mutati faction? That’s the question that Zambians want to know. What does the Mutati faction given to them that they are not even able to stand up for righteousness, integrity and morality, why are they failing to do that? I think we are very very saddened that ZCID continues to amaze us with their biasness and lack of morality and integrity,” said Mumba.