Zambia Media Critique

ZAMBIANS continue to express displeasure at the biased coverage of news by the public funded Zambia National  Broadcasting Corporation ZNBC. In random interviews many citizens openly declared that they had since stopped watching the ZNBC News because it does not depict the correct picture of what is going in the country. We have blogged many times before about the transformative shift needed to redeem the public media in Zambia. To an extent the quality of coverage depends on the leadership at the helm of n institution. Sharon Phiri of Lusaka's Chilenje said the following; "I think when PF just won there was a bit of improvement we saw Daily Mail also covering the opposition even ZNBC under Chibamba Kanyama had really improved. We saw how new reporters brought some creativity and even the opposition had a bit of coverage unlike now where ZNBC only runs responses to what the opposition said without allowing people to hear exa...

Zambian politics is full of underwhelming drama. Sometimes I feel our politicians overburden us with their politics. We have enough problems with the sky rocketing cost of living and continuing job cuts in industry, its really hard to get by, times are really hard. Zambians have been deceived way too many times and need a break, they need answers, they need leadership that will inspire them and not confuse them, one that is pragmatic and responsive not one that says one thing and does another. Reading the statement UPND leader gave at the high profile investment conference in the UK and checking the response from the ruling PF, who really did not need to respond to it if they had nothing to say on the substantive issues raised, leaves one bewildered and angry. In case you missed it here is what HH said: "We listened to the concerns and reservations of prospective investors, which closely mirrored those that we have already heard at home during our domestic consultation with Zamb...

By Bruce Chooma It’s Monday 9 th November, 2015 on a bright day at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa. The university is full of activity as it host the2015 Power Reporting Conference on investigative reporting in Africa.    I decided to attend an insightful lecture on how companies evade paying taxes. The lecture was delivered by John Christensen Director of the Tax Justice Network- an expert-led network that leads global efforts to curb tax havens. John is a trained forensic investigator and economist. I have argued during media interviews in Zambia that the award of tax holidays by the Zambian government to foreign investors   was a bad policy and was not in any way a means of reducing the cost of doing business and providing incentives for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). I was happy to hear John support this view as he began his lecture. In fact he provided evidence from various parts of the world to prove that lower taxes do not attract investment....

THE most consistent feature of Zambian politics is inconsistency. The saddest part of it all is that the vast majority of citizens take no keen interest in politics yet it is the decisions of politicians that are responsible for the progress or lack of progress that characterises various facets of our existence as a collective community of Zambians.   The decisions of today’s political office bearers will continue to yield fruits for generations to come. The national debt issue is a classic example of the impact of political choices on future generations. The debts that our founding father acquired to build the country and deal with economic challenges then came back to haunt the country in ways that not only significantly affected the quality of life of Zambians but also resulted in premature death of a lot of them.    The Patriotic Front government is back on the path of borrowing this time not only from development finance institutions with concessional terms bu...

On a weekly men’s’ radio talk show I host every Wednesday at 20:00 on Millenium Radio, the hottest topic I have ever handled had to do with the dressing of our Zambian women. I never knew how much discontent and unhappiness our men were harbouring on the subject.   The way Zambian women are dressing is truly, “dressing to kill. ” Our women are choosing tighter outfits that shape their bodies to an extreme fine detail to the point of arousing the imagination of even the most decent, religious and innocent man. Women’s clothes are also getting increasingly shorter in the case of dresses and skirts. They also tend to have very penetrative slits that enhance visibility as they walk and clearly reveal the difference in skin shades as one looks further up their legs. The effect of this on men is enormous. Your guess is as good as mine. Someone once said that, “we eat for ourselves but we dress for others.”   Women have taken this to a new level. There is clearly a puzz...

NEWS casters on our public service broadcaster are now under instruction to recite the “ One Zambia, One Nation ” slogan before each news bulletin. Those familiar with the history of Zambia will recall that the slogan was introduced in 1969 by President Kenneth Kaunda when he decided to set aside the Barotseland Agreement of 1964 which gave Barotseland some constitutional status that accorded the Litunga some unique powers and privileges during the establishment of a unitary status at independence in 1964.   The government asserted that in its quest for national unity it would not tolerate “a state within a state” and thus terminated the agreement.   The termination of the Barotseland Agreement was meant to bring about national coherence by applying uniform local government legislation and policies throughout Zambia. Unfortunately this decision resulted in the long-running dispute between the government and the Barotseland Royal Establishment, a dispute which has the p...

WE have written many times about the desperate state of the public media in Zambia. The Zambia Union of Journalists has today once again reminded us of these challenges as they make a passionate appeal to President Lungu to resuscitate these failing parastatals.   According to ZUJ the overriding problem is that all the state-owned media companies are in “intensive care” and if Government does not move quickly to save them, they will close down. These companies have for a long time been stifled by huge statutory debt and administration after administration has promised to recapitalize them. The Union is hopeful that under His Excellency President Lungu, the affected companies will be saved from total collapse through debt conversion into share capital and recapitalization. The Union is hopeful the in-coming Minister of Information and Broadcasting will be given a specific task to save public media as a priority. Our position on this matter remains the same. The idea of con...

By Bruce Chooma THE biggest test for Edgar Lungu’s presidency is how he will manage the economy. The Zambian economy has suffered not only from political uncertainty but also from policy inconsistency. His decision to retain Alexander Chikwanda is an indication of continuity on the same path of economic management. Zambia’s economy has continued to grow in a broad sense. Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda in his end of year statement for 2014 stated that preliminary real GDP growth of 6 percent was recorded in 2014 making Zambia the seventh and tenth fastest growing economy in sub-Saharan Africa and the world. The truth he forgot to mention was that the 2014 growth rate was lower than the target government had set. In addition to that the inflation target was also missed despite falling oil prices on the international market. Zambia would have attained a higher growth in GDP had it not been for policy inconsistency. It is desirable to have continued growth in the economy b...

Edgar Lungu. Picture courtesy of AP ZAMBIA’s sixth president   Edgar Lungu was sworn into office on 25 th January, 2015 after winning by a whisker the snap poll caused by the death of his predecessor Michael Sata in October, 2014. Edgar takes over an increasingly divided country with voting patterns revealing what can be interpreted as worrying deeply entrenched levels of unhappiness in certain regions of the country with the performance of the Patriotic Front government. Why were Edgar and his Patriotic Front rejected so decisively and overwhelmingly by over 52% of voters? The Electoral Commission of Zambia said Mr Lungu won 48.3 percent of the vote to his nearest rival Hakainde Hichilema’s 46.67 per cent. A total of 1.67m people voted in the election, of 5.1m registered to vote, with the low turnout of 32 percent. Hakainde had campaigned on the premise of “Zambia United” having realised that socio-economic exclusion was reversing Zambia’s gains in democracy and affec...