Zambia Media Critique

There is a general sense of discontent among citizens with the manner Zambia has responded to the global COVID 19 Pandemic.  The country which is landlocked and also home to some of the highest Chinese populations and business interest on the continent, has struggled to put in place response measures that demonstrate the desired level of commitment to fighting off the pandemic. The opposition took a swipe on President Lungu with National Democratic Congress leader Chishimba Kambwil i describing Zambia as operating as if it had no head of state as the President was not chairing the inter-ministerial Committee to combat the pandemic. They accused him of being only interested in elections and relegating his functions to cabinet ministers. Many Zambians had taken to social media to cry on the lack of leadership. One blogger Morgan Mwangana Nalwendo   said “WHERE ARE THE LEADERS????Serious Leadership should act proactively for the Good of Society. Being an Absentee Lea...

Zambia’s electoral body has confirmed that it will facilitate the enjoyment of the right to vote by Zambian prisoners in the next general elections slated for August, 2021. This follows a Constitutional Court judgment which affirmed the right of inmates to participate in elections as voters. This decision has aroused mixed reactions from civil society and political parties . This is despite the decision only affirming the constitutional rights of citizens and putting Zambia on a progressive human rights standing with other countries in Africa and around the world where prisoners enjoy the right to vote. Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) Chief Electoral Officer Patrick Nshindano said following the case of Godfrey Malembeka of Prison Care and Counseling Association (PRISCA) Vs Attorney General and ECZ in which the court held that prisoners’ rights to vote should be upheld, the commission would allow the inmates to vote in the 2021 general elections. He said the commission wa...

THE Zambian government has announced plans to create a consolidated media and newspaper publishing company under the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) Group.   This is a shocking decision given Zambia’s severely constrained fiscal position. The first step was taken a few days ago when the IDC dissolved the Times Printpak Board of Directors and handed over the management of the company to Zambia Daily Mail leaving only the editorial team to manage content at the broke parastatal haunted by massive debt and liabilities. The state controlled Times Printpak Limited the Publishers of the Times of Zambia and Sunday Times of Zambia has growing outstanding statutory liabilities with workers not receiving regular monthly salaries, in some cases up to 11 months in arrears. During the first nine months of 2019, Times Printpak recorded an operating loss of K41.7 million and had a return on assets (ROA) of -49 per cent. The IDC has directed that the Zambia Daily Mail Limited ...

PROMINENT Zambian businessman and proprietor of MUVI Television Stephen Nyirenda successfully inherited leadership of the National Restoration Party (NAREP) last week. NAREP was established in March 2010 by Elias Chipimo Jr.  Chipimo was the party's presidential candidate in the 2011 general elections, finishing fifth in a field of ten candidates with 0.4% of the vote. In the National Assembly elections the party received 0.2% of the vote and failed to win a seat. Chipimo proved to be a formidable, eloquent and youthful politician coming on the scene with a western style issue based politics with a clear manifesto proposing radical socio-political and economic reforms with innovative ideas around environmental management and energy. In his short political career, Chipimo was heavily criticized for not actively engaging with the masses particularly the youth in high density areas and those in rural areas thus denying the critical voting masses a chance...

By Bruce Chooma A recent report ranked Zambia the fifth hungriest nation on earth. This coincidentally comes at a time when the country is grappling with a severe drought which has devastated more than half of the country mainly in the Southern, Central and Western Provinces leaving many rural households surviving on wild fruits, roots and tubers. Despite enjoying a long period of peace and stability, climate variation has severely impacted the landlocked country of Zambia, where most farmers rely on rain to grow their crops. In the 2018 -2019 farming season, many areas in southern and western Zambia saw the lowest rainfall since at least 1981. 40% of Zambian children continue to be stunted, a figure that has remained consistent over the last few years, and the UN estimates that the current number of acutely food-insecure Zambians (1.7 million) will rise to 2.3 million by March 2020.   Many stakeholders have asked the Zambian government to declare the hunger situat...

THE political temperature is rising as Zambia nears the 2021 general elections. The ruling Patriotic Front (PF) and the main opposition party United Party for National Development (UPND) are not leaving anything to chance. Analysts have pointed out that the ruling party has never felt secure with its narrow victory over UPND in the 2016 elections hence its continued efforts to demonstrate who has more power and influence at every opportunity and particularly when there is a by-election. The fight for political dominance has often turned violent and for some time now political party supporters commonly referred to as party cadres in Zambia have used offensive weapons such as machetes commonly referred to as pangas to maim their opponents usually in the campaign battleground. A recently held by-election in Western Zambia in the District of Kaoma turned into yet another political battleground resulting in the death of a UPND supporter who was allegedly shot by an agent of their...

FREE and open access to public information by citizens is one of the hallmarks of a well-functioning democracy. Zambia like many other peer African countries continues to defer and to an extent frustrate citizens’ efforts to have easy access to information on the operations of government for them to hold their leaders to account. Nearly two decades ago Zambia began drafting what it called the Freedom of Information Bill which has now evolved into the Access To Information (ATI) Bill. However there has been consistent deferment of the date of introduction of the Bill to Parliament despite assurance that the Bill was approved by Cabinet.   Open access to information legislation are contentious on the African content and some commentators have argued that they have no meaningful impact on access to information by the media and little evidence exists that points to the extent to which they actually assist investigative journalism. An interesting argument for and against fre...