Parliament has recommended to the Office of the Director of Public Officers’ Declarations to apply appropriate sanctions to lawmakers and ward councillors who did not declare their assets.

According to the Parliamentary Committee on Public Appointments Chairperson Joyce Chitsulo, the Committee established that three legislators did not submit both initial and annual updates while eight legislators did not submit their annual updates without good cause.

Chitsulo added that 55 Ward Councillors did not submit annual updates whilst nine did not submit their initial declarations and one did not submit both initial declaration and annual update.

“We invited them as a Committee, we heard from them but however there was a need for us to get a legal opinion from the Office of the Attorney General (AG),” Chitsulo said.

“And according to what we got from the AG it’s supposed to be the Committee to move the Speaker to impose the sanctions on the lawmakers and councillors.”

The Chairperson said her Committee will be writing the Speaker of the National Assembly for imposition of the sanctions.

She said: “We will be working in that, I believe that in a week or two we should be done with that.”

“And we should be writing the Honourable Speaker so that she imposes the sanctions on the lawmakers and also write rightful authorities for the ward councillors who defaulted.”

During the engagements with the Director of Public Officers’ Declarations, the Committee was informed that since the inception of the Directorate in 2014, the country had seen an increase in the number of public officers declaring their assets from 10,343 to 15,452 in 2020.

However, the Committee learnt that the National Intelligence Bureau, South West Education Division and Councillors for Neno District Council were among the listed institutions who performed badly in the declaration of assets.