Comment Policy

1. Proper use of the portal - the user has the responsibility to use the portal appropriately as stipulated in the online public consultation guidelines. The users shall use the public online consultation portal for lawful purposes only.
2. Make genuine comments – a user shall have the responsibility or duty to make genuine or factual comments pertaining to specific consultation. Where necessary additional material or evidence may be provided by the user to support their comment.
3. Respect the privacy and rights of other users – the user shall respect the privacy and rights of other users of the online public consultation portal as per requirements of the relevant applicable laws of the Republic of Zambia.
4. The use of the online public consultation platform shall be in line with Acceptable Use Policy made available on this platform.
5. The user shall not post, transmit or submit through the portal any material which violates or infringes upon the rights of others, which is unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, invasive of public or private rights, vulgar, obscene or otherwise objectionable, which encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or violate the law or constitute spamming on the internet.

Rules of Netiquette

“Netiquette” refers to rules of etiquette that apply to online communication. Users will be required to follow the following 15 rules of netiquette to make sure they sound respectful, polite, and knowledgeable when posting comments on the Notice-and-Comment Portal.

• Before posting a comment to a discussion board, the user should check if anyone has asked a question on the same subject and received a reply to avoid duplication;
• Stay on topic – Do not post irrelevant links, comments, thoughts or pictures;
• All comments should be typed in sentenced case and not in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS;
• Avoid writing anything that sounds angry or sarcastic;
• While this is an open forum, always be polite when commenting on the Notice-and-Comment Portal;
• Respect the opinions of other users. Be mindful that others are entitled to have their own perspective on an issue;
• Be clear, concise and accurate when commenting;
• Users may like or dislike a comment appearing on the platform by clicking the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” icon instead of repeating.
• Before asking a question, check the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the portal to see if the answer is provided.
• Users can comment as anonymous or registered users using their email address. However, registered users have more privileges such as uploading attachments and receiving feedback to their comments than anonymous ones. 
• Comments will appear immediately. Alert us via e-mail at info@brra.org.zm if one of your comments does not appear.