THE Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has won four awards at the
2016 Public Relations and Communication Awards of the Zambia
Association of Public Relations (ZAPRA) for effective management of
the August 11 General Elections.
The awards are Best Crisis Management Campaign winner, Best Public
Relations Campaign, Best Public Sector Campaign and Best Managed
Public Events.
ECZ Public Relations Manager Chris Akufuna also got the runners up
award in the Public Relations Personality of the Year.
This was on Friday night during the 2016 ZAPRA Public Relations and
Communication Awards Gala at David Livingstone Safari Lodge in
Livingstone.
Speaking when receiving the awards, Mr Akufuna thanked ZAPRA for the
recognition saying it was not easy to deliver the 2016 General
Elections.
“The awards are very encouraging to ECZ. On behalf of the Commission,
I wish to state that we will maintain our standards and even do better
in the coming elections.
“It was not easy to deliver this election and we wish to thank ZAPRA
for the recognition,” Mr Akufuna said.
The Best Corporate Social Responsibility (CSC) went to Zambia
Consolidated Copper Mines Investment Holdings (ZCCM-IH) while
Multi-Choice Zambia was the runners up.
Solwezi Today was the Best Corporate Publication winner while the
Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was the as runners up.
The overall winner for the Public Relations Personality of the Year
was Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) Public Relations and Marketing
Manager Hezel Zulu.
Beauty Undi from Kalulushi Municipal Council was the Emerging Public
Relations Practitioner while the Best Public Relations Agency of the
Year went to Cutting Edge Media Com.
ZCCM IH won the Best Website award while the Zambia Information and
Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) was the runners up.
The Rural Electrification Authority (REA) won the runners up award for
the Best Public Sector Campaign.
ZESCO spokesperson Henry Kapata was the Best Publicist of the Year.
ZICTA won the Best Social Media Campaign with Airtel Zambia got the
runners up award.
The Best Public Relations and Communications Student was Sydney
Mutemba from Cavendish University while the runner up was Manga
Lubinda Sakeni.
Miyanda Maimbo, Kellys Kaunda, Samuel Kasanka, Musician Sister D,
Chibamba Kanyama, Zambia News and Information Services (ZANIS), Zambia
National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), ZABS and Vodafone Zambia
received respective President’s Awards.
And officiating during the Awards gala night, Livingstone Mayor Eugene
Mapuwo commended ZAPRA for recognising and motivating workers in the
Public Relations profession.
Mr Mapuwo said the Livingstone City Council believed in excellence and
that was why the local authority had a fully-fledged public relations
and customer care department.
“To the winners, use the awards to achieve the objectives of your
organisations,” Mr Mapuwo said.
ZAPRA president Davies Mupenda urged those who did not win awards to
work hard so that they win next year.
Southern Province Minister Edify Hamukale, who earlier opened the 5th
ZAPRA Public Relations and Communications conference at the same
venue, said it was important for PR practitioners and Communication
experts to assist the Government in ensuring that hate speech and
contempt among citizenry was discouraged with a view to promote
national unity.
The Conference, which attracted PR and Communication specialists
across Zambia, was held under the theme the “The role of
Communications in Regional Integration”.
Is it ECZ the one which presided over the controversial elections which are still in court? Or is it that ECL has also bribed these guys as he s now eyeing t bribe God into heaven!
Looks like everybody else got awards except Amos Chanda and Frank Bwalya….. These awards are biased.
What do you expect from Zambian Awards but mediocrity.
ECZ, IBA, ZNBC, ZANIS, Akufuna, Kapata hmmmn! Some professions, someone had to be awarded & this is their cream.
They leave out people like Caristo Chitamfya who’s been marketing this country at home & abroad.
Imagine rewarding an institution that wasted $3.5m of taxpayers money on mere ballot papers being printed in oil rich Dubai..no wonder they can not pay local suppliers.
don’t blaspheme God, you will die premature death mysteriously. you cant just talk issues without insulting people??????? now you have to blaspheme God just to prove a point. be careful what you say young man you may be sorry in Hell.
That’s the way it goes and not everyone will be appeased.
Even ZNBC and ECZ won? i wonder the credibility of these awards
Look keen follower. I am not a politician myself. But God is not one to be mocked. Leave God out of this. How can you say that? How can you even think like that?
Looks like everyone won something. Did anyone not win anything? please raise your hand
ECZ who cannot even deliver the crucial form G12 to polling stations 1 km from their headquarters??? Please lets be serious. No wonder Africa is behind, awarding people for failure of unmitigated proprtions!!!! Most of these organisations are ones failing to deliver on their mandate, but because they are still existing unscathed, they think that their PR deserves praise and awards. Mayne they do, but I think the awards must go to the Zambian people who are being mocked for being no. 1 in ” shipikisha” country.
Mayne = maybe
Really laughable..even mediocrity is now being celebrated, results that took more than 7 days to be announced!!
Results took over 7 days because upnd kept on interjecting, so there was a constant merry go round. Remember hh stormed into ecz three times.
Is it ECZ of Zambia or one from unknown planets?
I think it is Examinations Council of Zambia… Not the Useless Electoral Commission of Lungu!!
Awards going to loss making entities..truly laughable!!
Am I seeing right? Seriously??? Is this April fools joke?
These people at ECZ should be in the cells facing charges for RIGGING the elections!
Instead the are being given awards! It must be a joke! No sane person could invent such obvious LIES and expect to be believed.
If this is true, Lung and his PF have truly corrupted the whole country. And are not even afraid of mocking poor Zambians after having stolen their votes!
Why should they be in cells? Coz they didn’t support your prefered candidate? Who cares abt your everyday baby crying that they stole your votes. Keep crying till death UPND people!
@watchdog, the fact is that even if you condemn ECZ for the award, these awards cannot be withdrawn from them. They will hung on walls in ECZ offices for everyone to see their achievement. So even if you are not in support, that is your problem. Go and hung yourself against ZESCO transformer if you are grieved.
It’s Mushipe who should be in cells for interfering with the electoral process.
Remember IMF is around so we keep some PR as well by giving ECZ some award while they cannot even explain what they have done to Chavuma Server room scandal including Kasaro who says he is Zambian while everyone else knows that Kasaro is from Zimbabwe. Zambia, what has happened to you. What is this curse all about? Now ZAPRA celebrating the most incompetent ECZ so that IMF looks at us as being the most honest guys they can entrust their cash with.
The election was rigged beyond any reasonable doubt.
Why else did Lungu give the ECZ staff IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION even BEFORE the election had started?
To promise them the would not end up in jail if they were caught RIGGING!
There goes more of your Eurobond money in pockets of Goons hired to sanitize the glaring gross electoral fraud by the compromised Chulu/ Isaacs E.C.Z.
WHERE IS SAMUEL CHAVULA’S AWARD FOR MOST INCOMPETENT, & VISIBLE STATE PROTECTED FRAUDSTER, you useless money & timewasting P.F Vuvuzela’s??
ZAMBIA IS WELL & TRULY DEAD!!
When I saw the headline I thought it was satire. Reading the article, it seems like this was for real!
Perhaps I’m dreaming, or is the bar so low in Zed. ECZ?!? I wouldn’t trust these guys with counting fingers on their own hands.
When I saw IBA and ZESCO in the article and I knew it was a real sick joke. How can we aspire to be a great country when we celebrate mediocrity! It’s a race to the bottom. Ah! I get it now…
Dununa Reverse!
Let just say that the outcome of these awards was also rigged.
bola naikosa
This is in the realms of absurdity and is meant for PF kaponyas only.
No serious sane person in zambia would consider ECZ anything but a corrupt entity that has soiled zambias reputation as an island of peacefull democracy as directed by the convicted fraudster lungu.
Transporters who provided vehicles to ECZ for the elections are not paid and these guys are busy getting bogus awards. People worked, please pay them.
The transporters were part of the riggers. They allowed fake ballots to be inserted or swapped for real ones. They should not be paid so that they feel the pain of vote rigging.
Indeed, why is ECZ not paying suppliers? The excuse of non receipt of funds from government is becoming boring.
Suppliers were part of the election rigging. Not enough ink and GEN 12s supplied. And then pre-marked ballots inserted in transit to totalling centres. Why should suppliers be paid for rigging for PF?
What nonsense, how to you give awards tp people who helped rig an election.
This is the joke of the century. How can one be so shameless. Any way these are the same criminals who stole the Zambian vote.
Unbelievable! Is this country not beyond salvage?
Belive me,the county is falling to the Abyss…
Even murderers and Election Riggers win medals from fellow murderers. The fact that there are so many petetions being contested in Court means ECZ failed to deliver to the people of Zambia a free,fair and credible election in 2016. ECZ connived with PF and thoroughly rigged the Election in favour of Lungu and PF. The Upnd Petetion has been blocked by Concourt to conceal the extent to which ECZ rigged the Elections. In a Constitutional Democracy ECZ and Concourt would have been disbanded.
I’m afraid to say, who was prescinding over this awards? It reminds me of the KK time when KK will stand with a frog during elections times and people will tick the frog but never the less it was as the same as voting for KK as the frog does not go away from where there is water so KK was the owner of everything. Initially the frog was made no change.
When we talk about integret,honest and modesty ECZ does not have any of these qualities or characters to win any of the wards given to it. ECZ is toothless and a skull for source of conflict, hatred, untrustworthy and a very compromised institution with rotten leadership . The judiciary is another shameless, toothless, compromised, corrupt and with visionless leadership. When the Chief Justice was appointed it was seasons. Looking at her…
Maybe Chulu presided over the Awarding of organisations…too bad for Isaacs, she wasn’t rewarded despite facilitating Chavulas manoeuvres and the derailment of G12 forms. Akufuna was rewarded for banning questions during results and Hey I Hate ECZ, they have put us in this NO VISION syndrome due to pieces of Silver…Time will come and all the schemes of the Devil will be revealed, or laid bare….God to punish those tinpots at ECZ..ECZ award, very disgracing indeed.
What ECZ my foot. This is a joke!! Come on Zambians. Let us be serious.
With ECZ, they rig everything – even Awards!! No shame at all.
Ecz deserve the awards they did the job well and were very transparent. Only Upnd supporters can cry foul. Well done ECZ you deserve those awards.
A very very very big congratulation ECZ you did a very wonderful job so wonderful that you deserve so much more.do the same in 2021 and you will be rewarded handsomely.
I ve no quarel with ECZ award but on Henry Kaoata it s a miss. How can the ignorance he says about zesco be winning material? For the ignorant judges maybe.
Hiho hiho hiho hiho hiho hiho …there go the UPND donkeys on ECZ. Come on donkeys, go and plough for your chief donkey the rains are around the corner
EVERYTHING IS A JOKE
What mockery! They even spend more money at a slap up gala at the lodge.
The comments sums it all. These awards are as fake as ECZ.
If thsz standard, Zambia is rotten to core.
Hopeless.
I congratulate all those who were awarded by ZAPRA for their aimed efforts put in within their job descriptions especially ECZ. It is always no easygoing to be diligent and be recognised. Continue.
What do you expect from organisations full of PF cadres. it just shows how PF has corrupted many people and organisations in Zambia. welcome to more load shedding, more corruption, violence and loss of jobs etc
But zoona!!!!! How can you award ECZ? Like really????
We are finished as a country. Rewarding an organization after presiding over the most questionable polls in the history of this country! What nonsense is this? As at now ECZ is the most discredited institution, the most disgraced and somebody goes ahead to award it! Is this the level we have gotten to sure? Awarding fraudulent activities!!
Ladies and Gentle men, If UPND comes to power by mistake brace for hard times. I can ask all well meaning Zambians to desist from allowing UPND near you. And to ECZ please even if UPND wins 2021 elections don’t allow them. They must be pronounced winner because the Zambian people will suffer.
To ECZ again thank you for not honoring Marther Mushipe for her FOOLISH, CHILDISH and insincere behavior in the house. How can a person vote 6 times. That kind of open lie? Could not even present that evidence in the Concourt because she understands the repacations of taking lies to court.
It will be the same ECZ in 2021. Too bad for you!
ECZ is the winner? It is like the Pope canonizing into sainthood the Devil himself! This is the joke of the year and needs to be given that award.
shocking
Mmmmm…. Ba ECZ bakali! Let us clap for them gentlemen!