Zambia’s Ruling Patriotic Front Junta Is Nowhere Nearer On Promoting Media Freedoms

The Edgar Lungu Led Junta Is Using Public Institutions Like The Police, Revenue Authority and the Independent Broadcasting Authority To Fish Out Cases Against The Media To Intimidate Them And Create Fear So That They Do Not Cover The Opposition

 

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

Politicians, one day I may be one but probably with exceptional values, think they have the free world to themselves. They think they can have both worlds of being responsible and irresponsible and get away with it. And when the media plays its adversary role to interpret and criticise their irresponsibility they will walk all the way to find means to shut these media up.

Media's role is not just about being a conveyor belt of these politicians’ empty statements, actions and wishes. Media sees through those statements and actions, threshes out truth and exposes falsehoods  and laughs, sometimes with ridicule and unreserved disrespect as well as harshness, at political stupidity albeit politicians not wishing and unwilling to see it as such. 

The Patriotic Front government in Zambia under President Edgar Lungu is such a park of politicians who don’t want to accept the role of the media, and it is not stopping anywhere nearer now from intimidating the media. 

Just before elections The Post, the country’s most credible private newspaper, had its offices closed and its equipment seized, ostensibly over a case of unpaid tax. The Zambia Revenue Authority still keeps the newspaper shut. The paper has not been able to print in its full texture and format ever since, as it has been left to improvise to maintain its circulation.

As that was not enough, immediately after elections the not so Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was coerced, not from anywhere else but State House, to suspend the license of the only credible private television, Muvi TV. IBA claimed the television station broadcast material that was inciting violence following a disputed election. 

Largely, the concerned public thought the suspension of the license for the television station was meant to deny opposition leaders a meaningful mass medium through which they could build their case of a stolen election and balanced coverage of the proceedings of the presidential election petition.

Fast forward! 

Prime TV, another television station based in Lusaka, the country’s capital city, is the latest victim of government intimidation. Police are using one of the draconian laws, the State Security statute, to intimidate, bring fear and coerce the station to release footage of a meeting held by Hakainde Hichilema, the leader of United Party for National Development (UPND), the country’s biggest opposition. 

The police want the footage to build a case of treason against the opposition leader who is believed to have defiantly declared during the meeting that he will never ever recognise Edgar Lungu as the country’s legitimately elected President.

The police wrote a letter asking the Prime TV owners to avail the footage of their coverage of the opposition meeting. The television station broadcast a story based on the letter from the police, which the police are now treating as a leak of a State Secret.   

“Today (October 13, 2016) we summoned Gerald Shawa, 42 who is Managing Director of Prime TV and Makokwa Kozi, 35, the acting Station Manager for the television Station in connection with a leaked government document which the Zambia Police addressed to the Station's legal counsel requesting for footage of the Press briefing that was held by the UPND on 10th October, 2016,” said the police spokeswoman, Esther Katongo.

The police spokeswoman said the duo were “Warned and Cautioned for the offence of Communication of Certain Information contrary to section 4 (1)(b) of the State Security Act Chapter 111 of the Laws of Zambia, Section 4 (1) (b) of the State Security Act”.

According to Katongo the Act the police are citing states that “Any person who has in his possession or under his control any document or information which he has had access owing to his position as a person who holds such office or has held such office and who Communicates the same to any person other than a person to whom he is authorised to communicate, commits an offence”.

What the police are doing is nowhere nearer to meeting professional standards. And One need not to be specialized in media law to notice that the police are misapplying the State Security Act and doing the most stupid thing—to bring cooked up charges to intimidate anyone and any institution that aids the opposition to have their voice heard.

The question that most people are asking is: “when did a police call-out or document to a private individual or corporate citizen to avail themselves to law enforcement ever become a State Security. 

BJ

WE CAN AFFORD FUEL SUBSIDIES, BUT....

The truth is PF management of the economy, which is poor planning and wastefulness, leading to draining of national reserves, damaged the base for the country to sustain subsidies.

And it must be accepted that it would completely be a disaster if the government continued to provide these subsidies on borrowed money, as we already know we are in dare need of an IMF bailout now.

Remember PF had reduced subsidies on fuel just after coming into office and the jubilation all over by PF cadres was that the country would have more money for infrastructure projects. Surprising, the government continued to borrow and embark on projects they could not pay for using money from freed from subsidies.
Now all fuel products have gone up.

PF cadres still believe this measure will easily benefit the economy, release money into the economy to develop infrastructure as well as stabilise the price of fuel as more companies will participate in the importation of the commodity. No! It will not.

The Zambian market, due to other factors in the economy, has never made fuel price increase to benefit anyone let alone production. What it has always done is to increase the cost of production and trigger price increases across the whole economy, leading to high cost of living.

It is economically unrealistic to think of any positive benefits from a rise in fuel by more than thirty dollars in an economy like Zambia that has already got a high cost of labour instigated by the State Imposed Minimum Wage.

All productive sectors will have to find a way to pass the thirty dollars extra cost on fuel on to the consumer so that they can respect the minimum wage to keep the same number of workers on the State Wage and offset other overheads resulting from fuel hikes. 
NN

OPPOSITION PARTIES KEEN ON DEFEATING PF IN 2016

    >>But Can They Find The Right Campaign Messages<<

President Edgar Lungu may just benefit from late Sata's image in the 2016 polls

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

Elections are won far away before the polling day. It is the campaign messages that build all the way to the polling day that give the opposition the favour of opinion polls.

But it is not every message that wins an election; people must interpret those messages into their social lives and see the reality.

Therefore opposition leaders in Zambia must not be cheated, reliance on the negative views in The Post Newspaper will not help them win the 2016 elections against the ruling Patriotic Front.  

The first reason is that the PF message of pro-poor policies is still well-grounded among the call boys, necessity entrepreneurs and others who could be categorized as the street-wise life earners.

Taxi drivers in Lusaka own their own cars because Sata and his vice President Guy Scott bought them the cars on loan which they have paid back. The salary hikes, enforced through the minimum wage, for shopkeepers and unskilled public workers across the labour market is still a delight.

ZAMBIA CAN STILL GET MORE OUT OF ITS MINERALS

<<BUT IT HAS TO LOOK BEYOND TAX BENEFITS>>

PART1

Barrick Lumwana Mine in Solwezi

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

The uncertainty over one of Zambia’s mining operations closing down has been settled and put behind the country’s concerns.

Lumwana mine in Solwezi of North Western Province faced closure. This followed indications by Barrick Gold of Canada that it was pulling out and placing on care its open pit copper mine in the first week of January due to unfavourable tax measures announced by government.

Government last December introduced new royalty taxes of up to 8 percent for underground mining and 20 percent for open-pit operations, claiming the measure was intended to give the country more benefits from its mineral wealth.

However, government made a last ditch, reversing the tax regime in a move that State House announced was intended to serve 4,000 jobs that were going to be lost if the mine was forced to close.

THE FIRST LADY NOBLE CAUSES: WHAT THEY REALLY ARE!!

<<A Gift Today for a Vote Tomorrow Is Nothing Noble>>

NOBLE CAUSE: First Lady Esther Lungu meets PF women clubs in Mpika

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

Zambia's First lady Esther Lungu has been up and about the rutted terrain of the rural Zambia trying to engage women, encouraging them to form clubs and distributing gifts.

At the surface of it, the first lady’s traverses and engagements are a noble cause. She is reaching out to constituents—rural women, who are left out in the economic activities of the country. They need her support. Through her initiative, they can get access to various resources that can help them to embark on start-ups that supply the rural needs.

The activities of Esther Lungu are not new to this country. These activities have been done by previous first ladies. Vera, wife to President Frederick Chiluba had Hope Foundation, Maureen, wife to President Levy Mwanawasa had Maureen Mwanawasa Community Initiative and Tandiwe wife to President Rupiah Banda undertook an agriculture and environmental related cause, while Dr Christine Kaseba wife to President Michaela Sata ran Ubutala Wa-bumi (granary of health) project.

ONE ZAMBIA, ONE NATION: EMPTY LULLABY OTHER THAN POLICY

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

No one can be against the emblem of One Zambia, One Nation. But the choice by President Edgar Lungu to issue instructions to Zambia’s public media—ZNBC—to use the motto every time the station opens and at the beginning of all news casts, both radio and television, raises eyebrows—there is more to it than meets the eye.

Lungu says it is important that ZNBC uses the motto as a reminder that there is only one country for all the 72 tribes—at least in his conception he tries to mean that.

  What is the real intention of President Lungu? Had he won the election with a landslide, was he going to think about One Zambia, One Nation? Has it got to do with the respect of First Republican President Kenneth Kaunda, whom he has been reminding us to respect?

If he thinks Zambia is divided on the political front, he must know that a look at this country’s history reveals that the people of this nation have lived with these deep crevices time immemorial. Politics do not divide or agitate Zambians to rebel at a grand scale. Even if a possibility may come, which is not yet there, the One Zambia, One Nation slogan cannot be a magic wand to inspire them into restraint.

By the way, this country lived with this motto under Kenneth Kaunda’s rule, but it did not add any value to the country’s aspirations. The country continued to get from bad to worse in terms of the economy. It might have been better or not, but fact is: the country has pulled through over 20 years plus of the MMD rule without that slogan. What happened everyday under Kaunda and UNIP in terms of patriotism or lack of it continued under Chiluba and the MMD. In fact during the time of late President Mwanawasa Zambia did not need to recall the One Zambia, One Nation to register economic growth. Mwanawasa faced the worst resistance towards his government by the people of Zambia, but he remains one of those Presidents people say Zambia missed a leader who really had what it takes to move the country forward. He did not need the slogan.

There is nothing unifying or of national commission in the One Zambia, One Nation motto. It is empty lullaby that cannot put off the cries of thousands of graduates for jobs. It has no historical and empirical proof that it has had some subliminal effect, not even under Kaunda, to unify the country.

What Kaunda did was to hold this country together using force and fake democracy under one party state system. That was it. He built a country that excluded potential leadership; there were so many Zambians who did not flow with his rule. The return to multiparty politics in 1991 and Kaunda’s loss of that year’s election to the Frederick Chiluba’s MMD confirmed that.

If we have lived without the One Zambia, One Nation for 23 years: What makes Edgar Lungu think it is worthwhile lifting it up from the rummage of history? What is the real value and intention of President Lungu’s decision? Had he won the election with a landslide, was he going to think about One Zambia, One Nation? Has it got to do with the respect of First Republican President Kenneth Kaunda, whom he has been reminding us to respect?

Zambians will always be politically divided, but they do not show that until the elections come. What divides this country is more of economic inequality and that will not disappear with the chanting of a slogan. This is a country that has the rich and the poor cast at two extreme poles. It is a country where there is no drive to do things differently and change the fortunes of over 11 million people who are struggling to put food on the table. Further it is a country that has political leadership that resembles a circus—just jockeys and clowns juggling balls and bottle-sticks, walking a precarious tight rope tied up between two poles. Like spectators still holding their breath to see the string walkers get to the end, Zambians are in suspense not sure about where the country is heading till the next poll.  

It is the duty of Edgar’s government to dispel that fear, not with slogans but well seated policies. He must show us that above that tight-line he is walking, he is well secured and will not lose his balance and come crashing down with the whole economic act of the country. We are not referring to the events that happened on the International Women’s’ Day. There is no doubt, the man was declared fit, or is it feat?—to walk straight from an operation procedure at a South African Hospital and get straight to work.  

The Brutal Journal has particularly found it very awkward for Lungu to try and use empty ideological slogans that revive memories of an oppressive regime to inspire Zambians today, when there is a lot of room for meaningful political engagement across the table.

What is especially worrying is that the advancing of the slogan comes as key priority to President Edgar Lungu when on the economic policy front the only big decision he has made is a reversal of the well placed but ill-timed mining tax regime.  The other policy statement being peddled by his vice President Inonge Wina thus far shows how she got a job out of some emotional militancy she staged, as party chairlady, during the selection of the Patriotic Front successor to late Michael Sata. Had she not prevailed in support of Lungu, the job was going to go to someone else.

But lucky she is… though it will be difficult for her to convince anyone that her appointment was not mare tokenism. It is laughable that her first policy articulation was a sound-bite ZNBC was so glad to use proposing that: “government needs to establish some commission that will be entrusted with looking after the health of the President”. Is that not politics of self-preservation?

The next policy is that she will be visiting the markets to see how they can be used for economic development of the country. Economic what? How can a country start with markets when it is failing to address the biggest problem that has continued to keep Zambia to be a dumping place for foreign products?

What Inonge Wina must realise is that the problem of the poor performing of the Kwacha, the poverty

ravaging the many households and the increased number of girls who are breeding like rabbits does not lie in the markets. The hapless market traders have not even a single idea of what economic development is.

A lot of women with greater ideas to contribute to Zambia’s development are still waiting for her to constitute a conference committee that will look at the wider issues to liberate women out of poverty. She must get down to the desk and consult and hammer out some policy thoughts that are quite inspiring. For now, there is nothing booma Inonge has done.

NN

PRESIDENT LUNGU HITS GROUND RUNNING

>>But Stumbles over Unfinished Cabinet Appointments<<

By Nyalubinge Ngwende
January 26, 2015 will be a day Zambians will remember for many reasons. One reason being that it is a day, in four years, that a sitting President has held a press conference and interacted with members of the press on the State House grounds.

President Michael Sata never held a press conference since September 2011 when he was elected until his death on October 28, 2014.

However, Edgar Lungu has broken that legacy set by his predecessor and today held a press conference to announce appointments to his cabinet, a day after taking oath of office at the Heroes Stadium.

The conference, for one thing, set the tone of the kind of leadership that Edgar will provide to the country— a seemingly open system that can be subjected to public scrutiny; at least if that means being able to subject himself to the media questions on various national issues and providing adequate and rational answers without getting angry with the ‘messenger’.

Without disappointment, Edgar took questions from the media while upstanding. That shows he wants to be a President who engages others on national issues as a firm leader and on an equal standing—he shall not be an arm chair leader.

The President also hit the ground running, but not without a stumble.

During his maiden speech after being sworn as sixth President of the Republic of Zambia, Edgar announced that ‘I want to give you a new constitution’. To that effect he immediately appointed Dr Ngosa Simbyakula as justice minister.

Later during a ‘victory’ luncheon at state house, Edgar announced that he had dissolved his cabinet subsequent to the earlier appointment of a minister to the same cabinet.

While this appointment and the dissolution of cabinet is an indication that the new President has hit the tarmac running, logic finds the order of things confusing.

The new President has stumbled especially: first appointing a new minister of justice on the podium, then later going to announce the dissolution of cabinet.

Which must have come first between Simbyakula’s appointment and dissolution of cabinet might not matter, but it looks like the continuity of late President Sata’s frugal way of doing things is back. Hope reversal decisions may not take precedent again.

To avoid this Edgar must show some orderliness in the manner he is going to handle his duties. There must be a plan and decorum in doing these things.

Maybe this may seem to be asking too much from the new President? But orderliness is one of the virtues of leadership. It helps the leader exhibit thoughtfulness and intra- and interpersonal consultation before final decisions are arrived at.

Another stumble is that for some days, the country will be without a full cabinet. It will be the President, his vice Inonge Wina, home affairs minister Davies Mwila, foreign affairs minister Harry Kalaba, health minister Joseph Kasonde, and finance minister Alexander Chikwanda.

He did not tell the nation whether he was keeping the key position of defense minister to himself.

This means for weeks or several days to come, the Zambian cabinet will only comprise Wina, Chikwanda, Mwila, Kasonde, Simbyakula, and the President. That is how the sixth President starts his business with a cabinet of six.

Lungu is also pandering to opportunism by repeating the same problem of appointing members of parliament from the opposition without consultation with the leadership of the party where such appointees are being poached. In this case is the appointment of opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) Solwezi Central MP Dawson Kafwaya as Northwestern Provincial minister.

This approach to so called inclusive government lacks its merits as it promotes opportunism and just fans animosity between opposition political parties and their members of parliament.

Inclusive government must not come at the discretion of a President alone in terms of choosing whom he wants to appoint to his government. There is need to consult the political party that has its members being sought to serve in government who should propose names.

Unless a particular political party does not cooperate, then such action could be understandable.

This is another stumble that Edgar was supposed to avoid in every way…at least just to show us that as a ‘Jubilee President’ he wants to do politics of reconciliation. You cannot reconcile without talking to others.

We are going to wait and see if this was not a stumble but a slip-up and the new President will do things much better; orderly and in a manner that reconciles the country’s political tension while seeking a better and energetic team of ministers to work with to revive Zambia’s economy.

NN