Lawyers representing Former Defense Minister, Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba, have decided to initiate legal proceedings against Zambia Daily Mail and the Managing Editor, Anthony Mukwita in his personal capacity.

In a letter released to the media, the lawyers stated that Zambia Daily mail had not complied with the request to apology, but instead called for a meeting.

Below is the full letter to Zambia Daily mail

CNN-Whether it’s learning how to read and write or setting up your own farm, a Zambian computer tablet — known as the ZEduPad — is trying to open up the country’s information highway.
The brain child of British tech entrepreneur Mark Bennett, the ZEduPad principally teaches users basic numeracy and literacy skills, aimed at primary school children.

“It became clear that there was a huge need for this kind of technology,” Bennett said, “particularly tablet technology, which has come a long way in Africa in recent years.”
After arriving in Zambia 30 years ago under the British Aid Program, Bennett worked in the computer department at the country’s national university for over a decade before deciding to go it alone.

“We can really do something very major for the first time,” he said. “We’ve invested about $5 million to date… It’s totally all-encompassing and quite prescriptive so we are aiming at being able to get to an untrained teacher in a deep rural area in the African bush.”

Interactive learning

The ZEduPad is programmed in eight different languages native to Zambia with over 12,000 preloaded classes and lesson plans for untrained teachers in rural areas, according to Bennett.
Approved by the Zambian Ministry of Education, the educational tablet allows children to create a personal profile on its seven-inch screen to keep track of their progress as well as exposing them to e-mail and Wikipedia.

Bennett said the ZEduPad is set up to teach grades one to seven through interactive learning in every subject from math to PE, art and music.

The technology comes at a time when Zambia’s educational system is undergoing sweeping changes. Since 2001, the government has increased primary school enrollment rates by 90%.
As a result, the World Bank has identified the Southern African nation as having one of the most improved primary school education systems in the developing world.

Bennett added: “For years there was a problem with funding, education was not keeping up with population growth. Young people coming out of school and not being well suited or prepared to enter the job market…. We’re trying to change that.”

The ZEduPad gives children a grasp of vital technology skills in a landlocked country where broadband is scarce and only 18% of the nation’s 14 million people have access to electricity, according to the World Bank.
In addition to following the national curriculum, the tablet also contains farming and health information designed for adults to help prevent the spread of killer diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria.

Outsourcing to China

The ZEduPad is currently manufactured, assembled and branded in China. The devices are then loaded onto a plane and transported to Zambia, where Bennett and his team install the software onto each tablet.

“It costs roughly $100 to have them made and landed here in this country,” Bennett said. “We sell them to teachers and schools for $200 at the moment. We hope to bring that price down. One of the other things we’re trying to do is provide significant tech support.”

After teachers purchase the ZEduPad, Bennett said his team of experts go into schools and provide tutorials for staff so that they can maximize the tablets’ functions while learning how to deliver lessons to pupils.

Bennett said the tablet has, at one time or another, helped employ over 250 staff working in the development and distribution of the software from the company’s base in the Zambian capital, Lusaka. He says he has approached the government over hiring assembly workers in Zambia but to no avail.
He said that at a time when few companies are manufacturing technology outside of the Far East, production in China is “the cheapest and most cost-effective thing to do.”

‘Huge change’
Looking ahead, Bennett doesn’t want to stop at Zambia but hopes to roll the educational tablet out to a raft of other nations on the continent.
He believes that as countries in the developed world continue to transition from desktop computers to smart devices, Africa has a real chance to leapfrog ahead.
“I think the next big challenge is going to come from a lot of people who have got very cheap mobile phones. We’ll gradually see Android smartphones coming out for $70 or so… Huge change is happening at the moment,” Bennett said.

source: CNN -Marketplace Africa

President Sata must call for an early general election in order to replace the useless PF members of Parliament that he has personally identified, says political activist Dante Saunders.

He said it was clear that the PF government has lamentably failed to deliver because of the wrong people around President Sata who were scared to tell him what to do in pursuit of good governance.

There was no option but to call for early elections which will give Zambia new leaders now that President Sata has personally realized that his MPs were totally useless.

“It is for this reason the PF government has failed to deliver because it has wrong people in place that cannot deliver to the people’s expectation, and also who are not helpful to him because they are scared of telling him what to do,” he said.

Saunders said that President Sata’s statement that most of his PF Members of Parliament were useless confirmed why his government had failed to run the affairs of the nation.

He said President Sata must take full responsibility and realize that he was running a nation and not PF, adding that the President should not suppress innocent citizens on grounds that his government has failed to deliver.

“The problem with Mr Sata is that he does not want to listen to what the people and other stakeholders are saying,

“Right from the beginning it was clear that the PF was not ready to give the people of Zambia what they wanted. It will be better if he calls for early elections so that he can have new leaders to help him bring about development,” he said.

He said that the PF leadership did not embrace dialogue or support divergent views because there was too much selfishness and ignorance, adding that it was important to see change, starting with President Sata who should seriously change his attitude.

“Politicians should try to exhibit politics of love, maturity and not politics of finger pointing like what we are seeing in the PF leadership, no wonder their failure to perform their duties to expectations,” he said.

He maintained that leaders who were not ready to hold public offices should vacate and give chance to others willing to serve Zambians diligently.

And the opposition ZDDM leader Edwin Sakala said he was happy that President Sata has admitted that most of his MPs were useless.

Sakala said that Zambia needed a fresh start and that it would be best to call for early elections because the future of Zambia was threatened by the poor calibre of leaders in politics.

“As ZDDM we are mobilizing to picket State House and among the suggestions we want to put forward to President Sata is that he should within his powers dissolve his government and form a government of national unity which will accommodate all political players for the sake of saving Zambia, because the current politics of bickering are only destroying the future further,” he said.

Kabwata Member of Parliament Given Lubinda has charged that the central committee of the Patriotic Front (PF) was the only supreme organ of the party that had the authority to expel any member of the party and has advised former Defence Minister Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba to remain focused and loyal to his principles despite the persecution he is going through.

Lubinda who was once a victim of persecution in the party enduring a suspension whose cause was never explained said what had happened to the Kasama Member of Parliament was not strange and that everything had a purpose.

Lubinda said since the Northern Province PF executive committee had only recommended that the Kasama strongman should be expelled from the party, the onus was now on the central committee to look at the merits and demerits of the recommendations before making the final decision.

He said while the Provincial executive committee had the right to recommend any disciplinary action including expulsion of a member from the party, it was the mandate of the central committee to make the final decision on any disciplinary action against any member of the party.

Asked about what was happening in the party with the purported expulsion of Mwamba popularly known as GBM, Lubinda said it was the PF secretary general Wynter Kabimba who should answer the question because he was the most powerful leader in the ruling party.

“The person who is supposed to answer the questions you are asking is Wynter Kabimba, the all powerful man in the PF. He is the spokesperson, the secretary general and the Justice Minister.

For me I am just watching like everybody else in the party but my strong advice to my colleague GBM is that he must not change and abandon the values and principles he believes in.

These things happen for a reason and he must not be shaken. He must continue performing for the PF to the best of his abilities,” Lubinda said.

Lubinda advised Mwamba to continue behaving in a manner that would be deemed honourable to the ruling party and general membership

Former President Rupiah Banda’s son, Andrew, who was last week convicted of corruption charges, is facing fresh charges for alleged theft involving more than K1 million.Police in Lusaka have since recorded a warn and caution statement from him.

Andrew, who was last week sentenced to two years in prison for soliciting a bribe from an Italian investor, Fratelli Locci SRI Limited, was on Monday driven from Lusaka Central Prison to police headquarters where he was interrogated for about two hours.

Police spokesperson Charity Chanda confirmed in an interview yesterday that Andrew was warned and cautioned for theft by director contrary to the law.

“Yes he was warned and cautioned yesterday for theft by director contrary to section 279 charter 87 of the Laws of Zambia read with section 21(1)c,” Ms Chanda said.

Andrew is alleged to have received cement worth K1, 077, 799, 100 (unrebased) from Zambezi Portland Cement Limited pretending that he had paid for it through the provision of consultancy services when in fact not.

The incident happened between August 2010 and December 2011.

Further information alleges that after Andrew got the cement from the cement firm, the amount was later written off the company books in unclear circumstances.

During the probe, Andrew informed the investigation officers that the transaction with Zambezi Portland Cement Limited was genuine and that he had delivery invoices to show for them.

Andrew is, however, said to have not produced the invoices despite subjecting the police to a long wait for them since the investigation into the matter opened.

Meanwhile, Lusaka chief resident magistrate Joshua Banda yesterday granted Andrew K10, 000 cash bail pending his appeal to the High Court against his two-year jail sentence.

Mr Banda ordered that Andrew should further provide two working sureties in the like sum but in their own recognisance.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP)’s chambers had, however, objected to Andrew being granted bail, saying there were no exceptional circumstances to warrant granting him bail.

But Mr Banda in his ruling yesterday stated that there was a notice of appeal filed by Andrew and that the discretion of granting or not granting bail lay with the court.
Mr Banda said the State did not show that Andrew was a flight risk and as such, the court was releasing him from prison on bail.

[Times of Zambia]

GOVERNMENT has challenged media houses to exercise high ethical and professional standards by preserving the norms and values of society in their reporting.

Chief Government spokesperson, Mwansa Kapeya echoed concerns raised by the general public over pictures of scantily dressed nightclub patrons, which have become a common feature in most weekend editions of some sections of the print media.

Mr Kapeya, who is Information and Broadcasting Services Minister, said media practitioners should be reminded that Press freedom is not a blank cheque for them to do as they wish without due regard for the social and moral sensitivities of society.

“As a matter of fact, media freedom, like all other freedoms, is not absolute. It is equi-distant to responsibility. The more freedom the media has, the more responsibility it should equally have in exercising that freedom for the good and benefit of society,” he said in a statement.

He said media practitioners should desist from willfully fishing for morally distasteful pictures from nightclubs for publishing in the newspapers.

[pullquote]“It would be very sad to find a newspaper carrying detestable pictures in church in a Christian nation such as ours,” he said.[/pullquote]

Mr Kapeya also called upon media bodies such as the Press Association of Zambia, Media Institute of Southern Africa, including the Zambian Media Council, to intensify their promotion of ethical and professional conduct in the media fraternity.

“For its part, Government remains unreservedly committed to providing a conducive environment for the growth of a free, independent and professional media that will contribute meaningfully to national development,” he said.

Mr Kapeya said while Government fully appreciated the argument that the media was a mirror that reflects the realities on the ground, it also recognised the fact that the media was an agent of change that could positively influence undesirable realities on the ground.

He said newspaper publishers should be mindful that there were people who bought newspapers as they went to church and carried them into the temples.

“It would be very sad to find a newspaper carrying detestable pictures in church in a Christian nation such as ours,” he said.

He said publishing nude pictures was not only corrosive morally, especially to the young generation, but also a recipe for social vices such as sexual abuse, defilement and rape which were detrimental to the well being of society.

He also appealed to patrons, both men and women, to exercise decency and modesty in their dress as they enjoyed themselves in nightclubs in conformity with the customs and traditions of the nation.