SPEAKER of the National Assembly Patrick Matibini has directed Vice-President Guy Scott to address the House today on the point of order raised by former Vice-President George Kunda, who has questioned the abolition of the position of secretary to the treasury, a position that was created by Parliament under the Public Finance Act No. 15 of 2005.

Mr Kunda, who is also Muchinga MP (MMD), asked whether Government was in order to abolish the position of secretary to the treasury without seeking authority from the House.
Mr Kunda, who raised the point of order during debate on the President’s address to Parliament, said the secretary to the treasury is the controlling officer for public funds and that he is the one who appoints controlling officers.

“The secretary to the treasury, inter alia, performs the functions of preparing estimates of expenditure (budget), reviews the budget, submits financial reports to the minister and prepares supplementary estimates.”

“With the abolition of the position of secretary to the treasury, who is going to prepare and authenticate the budget for 2012, and who is appointing controlling officers? The abolition of this position has far-reaching implications,” Mr Kunda said.

He said according to a story which appeared in the Zambia Daily Mail of October 4, 2011, President Sata decided to abolish the position, which was held by Mr Likolo Ndalamei, saying it was extravagant.

Dr Matibini told the House that he expected Dr Scott to address the matter today.

Meanwhile, Mfuwe MP Mwimba Malama (PF) has commended President Sata for laying out the vision he has for this country during his address to Parliament last on October 14.
Mr Malama, who moved the motion for debate, said the President’s speech has given hope to Zambians, who lived in fear of a bleak future.

[pullquote]“With the abolition of the position of secretary to the treasury, who is going to prepare and authenticate the budget for 2012, and who is appointing controlling officers? The abolition of this position has far-reaching implications,” Mr Kunda said.[/pullquote]

He said the PF will not let the people of Zambia down and assured that the party will deliver on its pre-election promises. In seconding the motion, Petauke MP Dora Siliya (MMD) said she was happy to note that the PF prioritises sectors such as agriculture, health and education, just like the former ruling party.

She said, however, that the President did not say anything on the PF’s foreign policy and that there was nothing mentioned on the windfall tax. Kalomo MP Request Muntanga (UPND) said he found the speech to be “open-ended” and that most of the things that were promised may take longer to implement.

Debate on this motion resumes today.

Movement for Multiparty Democracy MMD national chairman Michael Mabenga has castigated the MMD North Western Province Executive for calling for his resignation and the stepping down of former President Rupiah Banda from the party presidency.

Mr. Mabenga says there is no way he will relinquish his position as chairman of the former ruling party. This follows the resolution by the MMD Provincial executive committee in North Western Province for former president Rupiah Bwezani Banda to relinquish his position as president of MMD with immediate effect and retires from active politics.

MMD provincial secretary Emmanuel Chihili says the executive further wants Mr Mabenga, and National Secretary Major Richard Kachingwe to resign on moral grounds for lamentably failing to run the party.

Mr. Chihili says the provincial leadership has also proposed that former commerce minister Felix Mutati assumes the MMD Presidency in an interim capacity as they wait for the extraordinary convention.

Mr. Chihili states that the MMD in Northwestern Province are not comfortable and happy with the way the top leadership is handling the party affairs following the painful defeat orchestrated by lack of foresight.

But Mr Mabenga says he will not relinquish his position because of a complaint from one individual. Mr. Mabenga in an interview with QFM radio has also doubted media reports quoting Mr. Chihili. He says the MMD has a procedure which should be followed and not rushing to the media to air grievances.

He adds that the MMD only went to the convention this year and that there is no way the party will organize another convention.

QFM

If you are a fan of zambian music , you have most probably heard of Zedbeats. It is the premiear channel on youtube to get the latest and greatest zambian music videos and songs on demand.

BEGINNING 

Zed Beats was started on 20th, May 2010, by a student,,studying in the USA. He had a great passion and love for Zambian music. Being abroad for a number of years it was very hard to find latest Zambian music and videos anywhere and to keep in touch with what was going on in the Zambian music industry. He figured there must be many more Zambians in the diaspora facing the same problem.  Music from other countries ,especially Nigeria , is very popular in other countries .

He decided to start Zedbeats with 2 main objectives:

1. To make Zambian music global, and reach people who have never had the opportunity to enjoy it. This would in turn help expand the Zambian music industry and its reach and consequently help the Zambian artists, record labels, videos producers etc , get more out of their music & crafts.
2. To help Zambians all over the world have better access to Zambian music and keep up to date with it.

He traveled to Zambia in 2010 and got hold a lot of the new Zambian music and videos and started making contacts in the industry.

He then started by creating a Youtube channel called Zed beats.  This served 2 purposes.

1.  It allowed people to listen to the songs and watch the videos but they were not downloadable , this was in order to not contribute to piracy that is hindering the growth of zambian music.
2.   Youtube already had a base of people from all over the world who search for music and videos so setting up the channel dedicated to zambian music would attract a lot of people and make it grow in popularity.

ZED BEATS ON YOUTUBE

The youtube channel  is currently the number 1 destination for Zambian music online. Since it’s inception (17 months ago), it has grown rapidly and offered the Zambian Music industry over 2.5 million views/listen from ears all across the world and continues to get 10,000 views daily.

Several of the countries that now enjoy Zambian music had previously never even heard of ZAMBIA, but have now fallen in love with its music, thanks to Zed Beats. And a couple of songs exposed by Zed Beats have even gone on to make the charts in those countries ,for example  “Captain Charlie” by Josi went to the top of the charts in Ned Caledonia and Vanuatu, which are island countries in the South Pacific.

 Josi “Captain Charlie”

Zambian music can now be heard playing in clubs all over the world, even where people do not even understand the language.

LAUNCH OF THE WEBSITE

The new Zed Beats website is intended to be the “go to” website for anything Zambian music. There are plans to add more features. Currently, Zambian music lovers can get free music downloads, artist profies and interviews, music videos, charts and countdowns.
This has been in the plans for the very start, but has finally come to fruition. The world is ready for Zambian music.

To show how much the world has been waiting for this, within 3 days of launching the website, there were over 12,000 music downloads from it.

Piracy of Zambian music is strictly not advocated. ALL the downloads offered on the website are legal free downloads offered by the artists themselves or their record labels, producers and/or promoters

 FUTURE PLANS

• Help the Zambian Music industry develop further so artists can make a worthwhile living from it.
• Help Zambian artists reach more markets even more by collaborating with artists from other countries
• See Zambian music get to the point where Zambian artists can be invited to foreign lands to hold a concert perform and pack the place with non-Zambian Zambian music fans.
• See more Zambian musicians nominated for more international and prestigious awards.

Visit the site to watch the latest zambian music videos such as:

Also a Zed beats mixtape , with one and a half hours of non-stop zambian music

For more information you can follow zed beats on Twitter and Like them on Facebook

BY KAPA187

FORMER MMD national secretary Katele Kalumba says a working relationship with the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) will serve the long-term interests of the MMD as opposed to a partnership with the United Party for National Development (UPND).

Dr Kalumba said: “A partnership with PF will help serve the long-term interests of MMD. Partnerships with weaker candidates never impress me. By helping PF govern, the MMD will come out better in the public eye than simply helping the UPND ascend to power by obstructing PF.”

Dr Kalumba said there are many internal issues that the MMD needs to resolve before it can become a viable partner with any political party. “There is a history on the part of the UPND which needs to be carefully understood or how its pact with PF fractured and why it fractured. The content matter of that fracture was principally centred on leadership.”

Dr Kalumba added: “I don’t think the MMD has consulted enough about its own leadership issues to marry itself with UPND, which also has its own leadership issues.”

And Parliamentary chief whip Yamfwa Mukanga has advised the MMD to reflect before entering into a pact with the UPND, saying the latter are inconsistent.

In an interview yesterday, Mr Mukanga said the partnership between MMD and UPND is not new because the two opposition political parties worked together in the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) which the PF boycotted.

“The pact between MMD and UPND is not new, they worked together at the NCC but the UPND withdrew when they brought the constitution to parliament so the MMD should now start thinking,” he said.

Mr Mukanga, who is Minister of Transport, Works, Supply and Communication, described the pact between MMD and UPND as a marriage of convenience because the UPND will abandon them at the last minute like they did with the PF.

“If you keep on getting divorced, you should think twice why you keep on getting divorced. UPND has never been consistent that is why they don’t even have a Speaker, deputy speaker not even the deputy chairman of committees, the UPND was even beaten by the FDD, a one-man party in the House,” Mr Mukanga said.

He said President Sata’s address to the First Session of the Eleventh National Assembly is about changing mindsets and the manner in which development is pursued.

Mr Mukanga said it is unfortunate that the MMD and the UPND want to enter into a pact just to frustrate progressive PF policies that are for the benefit of the people.

“In this new dispensation, we will ensure that things are done in a transparent manner so that we can have a Zambia that will be fit and habitable. We are in Government and every Zambian must be told what Government is doing. We were in opposition but we worked hard and the people gave us the mandate so why should people frustrate what we are doing?” Mr Mukanga said.

He said opposition political parties are there to provide checks and balances but not to frustrate Government programmes. Mr Mukanga also said Government will expeditiously reintroduce the abuse of office clause in this sitting of Parliament in order to effectively fight corruption.

“President Sata’s speech gave the direction that Government and Parliament will take. That clause has to come in this sitting of Parliament because we want to fight corruption and that should be done expeditiously,” he said.

[Zambia Daily Mail]