The Zambia Centre for Interparty Dialogue on Tuesday 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,” Tembo said.

And speaking during ZCID’s meeting with Mutati’s camp, Tembo said all the leaders the centre had met so far were receptive to the dialogue process.

“I think the meetings ZCID has had with two party presidents that we have met so far with the UPND president Mr Hakainde Hichilema and the President of MMD honourable Felix Mutati, they have both been receptive in terms of embracing the dialogue process,” Tembo said.

“We had to clarify on a number of issues which the two presidents might not have been very aware of in terms of the proposed road map of ZCID but in terms of the progress I think we are making good progress as ZCID and even the issues of concerns such as issues of capacity, issues of funding they have since been addressed, we have basically provided an action to these two presidents in terms of how we intend to address issues of capacity building within ZCID and issues of funding for this dialogue process, so we believe we are ironing out those issues which were grey.”

He explained that most of the areas of concern are being addressed and that the starting point in addressing the concerns was sitting around the table.

“Most of these issues when discussed in public through the media they seem insurmountable but if you seat around the table and actually discuss there substance you realise that they are not so insurmountable after all, these are issues that can be ironed out and we make progress as a nation in trying to deliver this dialogue process,” said Tembo.

“There is no question that the problems that we face as a nation  can only be adquatly resolved by ourselves as citizens. These other people who might come might come in to assist to besically give us a kick in the back so that we are able to move at a faster pace but in terms of the primarily role of resolving these issues they need to be resolved locally and under locally esteblished institutions such as ZCID because you must understand that just like the MMD President said in his opening remarks that the dialogue process is a process like the term goes it is not a one off event so if we were to rely on visitors to basically sort out our problems then every time there is too much salt in the relish then we would  have to call outsiders instead of putting water ourselves, so we need to besically adopt and embrace a culture of being able to resolve our own problems as a nation and if there are inadequacies in terms of the institutions that might have been created, institutions such ZCID then those inadequacies have to be addressed as opposed to abandoning the institution”.

Meanwhile, Mutati, who is also Works and Supply Minister, said his party saw the dialogue process as a great opportunity to unify Zambia.

“For us as a party we see this as a tremendous opportunity to deal with whatever issue on the political landscape that are affecting our people. Our key emphasis is that the ultimate solution belongs to the people we are just carries of the aspirations of our people so as leaders and the role that ZCID is playing is crucial that we own the process as Zambians. Let everybody else participate from outside at the end of the day we must own our problems, we must guard them jealously and live with the consequences of the out puts that we make so that we don’t blame anybody for those consequences. As a party we shall remain engaged, we are supportive of the road map and we wish Zambia God’s blessings,” said Mutati.

He added “This is a problem in the bedroom and the best way to solve a bedroom problem is for the parties that are in the bedroom to begin to talk to each other, no body who comes from outside the bedroom can create a solution so let us remain in the bedroom and deal with the issue.”