Two Civil society Organizations (CSOs) have handed over a petition containing over 14 thousand signatures on the new constitutional bill to Parliament.

Citizens Forum executive secretary Simon Kabanda and Get Involved Zambia (GIZ) executive director Fr Frank Bwalya led a sizeable crowd of people who gathered outside Parliament to present the petition with placards with messages to Members of Parliament (MPs) while a heavy presence of police kept vigil.

The two CSOs are demanding for the inclusion of the contentious clauses that include the 50 percent plus one threshold for the winning Presidential candidate, having a Presidential running mate and swearing in of the President-elect in 90 days as opposed to the current 24 hours system.

Presenting the petition Citizens Forum Executive Secretary Simon Kabanda called on all members of parliament to heed to people’s wishes.

Three MPs who include Chifubu Member of Parliament Susan Kawandami, Mwimba Malama of Mfuwe and Kanchibiya parliamentarian Davis Mwango received the petition.

And receiving the petition, Mfuwe MP Mwimba Malama assured the CSOs that their petition will be tabled before the house.

Meanwhile GIZ Executive Director Fr. Frank Bwalya said the three contentious clauses are critical to this year’s elections.

Fr. Bwalya expressed hope that MPs will respect what the people who voted them into power want.
[ QFM ]

Four people are feared dead in Chavuma district in North Western Province after a boat they were travelling in capsized owing to heavy currents on the Zambezi River.

The boat was carried away by heavy currents and capsized as the quartet was crossing the Zambezi River from Chavuma Boma to Sanjongo on Monday.

District Administration Officer Mangalilo Sheyama confirmed the incident to ZNBC in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

Mr.Mangalilo said among those feared dead is a teacher James Solochi, his son and two other unknown people.

A rescue operation has been launched for what may seem too late to save life.

Meanwhile, Mr. Mangalilo says Chavuma District is experiencing heavy floods as a result of the rise in the water levels on the Zambezi River.
[ ZNBC ]

The United Party for National Development (UPND) has described as baseless and provocative Kafulafuta Member of Parliament George Mpombo’s assertions that its leader Hakainde Hichilema is campaigning for President Rupiah Banda hence his attacks on PF leader Michael Sata.

UPND deputy spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa has said that his party is deeply disappointed with Mr Mpombo’s assertions that the leader is campaigning for President Rupiah Banda when he has been campaigning for himself ahead of the forthcoming alections.

Mr Mweetwa told QFM that Mr Mpombo should concentrate on rebuilding his political career which he said was dealt a serious blow following the recent ward elections in Kafulafuta were the UPND narrowly lost to the ruling MMD despite him campaigning for the Patriotic Front which came third.

He said Mr Mpombo should also concentrate on consolidating his support for the Patriotic Front instead of accusing the UPND leader of campaigning for the incumbent republican President.

He explained that the UPND leader has been visiting different parts of the country campaigning for himself and the party ahead of the polls.

Mr Mweetwa added that Mr Mpombo has a moral obligation having served as Defence minister to conduct himself properly and desist from being inconsistent.

The former defence minister is quoted in today’s edition of the Post as saying that it is clear that the UPND leader has been recruited to campaign for President Rupiah Banda in the forthcoming elections.

And UPND has said that the collapse of the UPND-PF pact does not mean that president Rupiah Banda will win this year’s general elections.

UPND spokesperson Charles Kaoma said that president Banda will lose the forthcoming election because he is the most vulnerable president Zambia has ever had.

Mr Kakoma said President Banda has no support not even from Eastern province where he comes from.

He said that the Zambian people must reflect on what has happened to the UPND-PF pact and realize that their dream to change the government lies in voting for the UPND.

He said Zambians should not despair following the deaths of the pact because it is not the end of the road but remain determined to change government.

In an interview with Qfm, Mr Kakoma added that it was the PF’s agenda for the pact to dissolve because of insincerity and alleged demeaning statements by PF secretary general Wynter Kabimba.

He said the party believes in moving on and that they are working hard to win this year’s general elections.

QFM

The Foundation for Democratic Process FODEP says the continued electoral violence being perpetuated by political parties ahead of tripartite elections does not inspire confidence in the electoral process.

FODEP executive director Macdonald Chipenzi says the situation is compounded by the extension of violence against innocent journalists stating that this is a blatant signal of lack of respect for freedom of the press by politicians.

Mr. Chipenzi says FODEP strongly condemns the continued political violence and harassment of media practitioners covering political activities in the country.

He has since appealed to the law enforcement agencies to pursue perpetrators of violence ahead of the elections.

He appealed to all political party leaders to instill discipline in their members.

Mr. Chipenzi explained that for the media to be able to play an effective role in ensuring free and fair elections, political parties should respect the rights of journalists to report election related events free from intimidation and fear of their lives.

He called on the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) and its officials in districts and provinces to provide the media with complete, accurate and timely information about the election process to avoid speculations and suspicions.

The FODEP executive director has further advised the media to refrain from biased coverage and coverage which reinforces the existing prejudices against women and persons with disabilities.

On Saturday PF and MMD cadres clashed at Garden house motel during the PF provincial conference and harassed ZNBC journalists.
[ QFM ]

THE following is a reproduced transcript of an interview that the Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata recently had with some international media organisation where he addressed  more chinese issues than the  hotly debated gay rights issues.

QUESTION 1: If you win the elections, will you change anything in relation to policy towards what the current Government stands for with China?

SATA: First of all change is a very strong word. Is there anything to change? Change is a very strong word. You change things which exist but what is there to change?

If there are laws and they are not obeyed and you tell people to obey the laws, that is not change.

If The Chinese or any other investor comes to Zambia they should obey the local laws just like if i go to China or Denmark I should obey the local laws of the Chinese or Danish. There should be no two laws, one for Chinese and one for other investors.

QUESTION 2: Can you give an example of that?

SATA: Well, the example I can give you is the Chinese bring excessive labourers, unskilled people, which is not the case with other Western investors.
We want investment to benefit Zambians not investment to benefit China.

China, they are bringing their capital, they are bringing their technology to come and exploit what is in Zambia and provide employment and training to Zambian people.
That is cardinal and key that is not change, we have to implement it.

QUESTION 3: We went to the opening of the huge large stadium for a ground-breaking ceremony. What do you think of these gifts and the roads they are building?

SATA: Listen, first of all, when you are talking about the roads you are not young enough, the Chinese are not giving us a gift.

There has been a stadium there that is where we celebrated our Independence 47 years ago.

If you are refurbishing something that is not a gift. How much money are they getting from that?

How many Chinese are going to be employed and how much money are they going to externalise.

Roads are impassable going to the township and so what are you talking about? Independence Stadium has always been there, it is not a new programme.

QUESTION 4: Why do you think the Chinese are investing so heavily specifically in Zambia?

SATA: Zambia is providing an opportunity to all those investors including the Chinese because if you take the Chinese and Australians, First Quantum Minerals, Equinox and Indians Australians have invested a lot more than the Chinese, so you cannot say that they have invested heavily. So if you say they are investing it does not arise.

QUESTION 5: Could you explain to me how the development has been here in Zambia because I have gone to the streets and seen changes all-over?

SATA: Am not seeing it. I am a Zambian. Development means something new. I am not seeing anything new.

QUESTION 6: But I have seen a lot of Chinese?

SATA: Chinese have come to seek refuge. That is not change; change is to see something which has never existed.

This year Zambia is 47 years of Independence, any human being who is 47 years has grand children.

If you look at all these buildings they are buildings which were left by Western countries. I have not seen any single Chinese building, show me one.

QUESTION 7: What is the difference between the Chinese investment in mines and Western engagements in Zambia?

SATA:. You are going to the Copperbelt and all you will find there is what was developed by the Western. Nothing has been developed by the Chinese.

The Chinese have just come to sit in comfort. There isn’t anything the Chinese have developed.

And the Chinese they have come in the country at a time when Frederick Chiluba, scrapped all foreign exchange regulations, they export everything what they leave is environmental deterioration.

We don’t see anything, the little money which comes is to pay the Chinese and probably wages but the Western, everything they sold came back to Zambia.

QUESTION 8: If you win the elections what would you do towards the Chinese?

SATA: I have already answered I am not talking about Chinese. Good things must be for Zambians they have better facilities than we have, they don’t go to our hospitals.

What we want is we wanted good things for Zambians. The Chinese are very welcome, everybody is very welcome but they must obey the laws of this country.

If they don’t obey the laws of this country the laws themselves will deal with them

QUESTION 9: What do you mean they don’t obey the laws of this country? Can you give me an example?

SATA: All-over the world if I come to your country, I drive in a wrong direction they will sort me out.

If I come to your country, I commit a nuisance they will sort me out. These laws are standard and followed all over.

QUESTION 10: Can you give me an example of how Chinese here have not obeyed the laws of the Country?

SATA: First of all when you are asking for an example, I told you in my preamble that there is a law which says bring your investment and your technology and a limited number of labourers, it doesn’t say go and bring the whole China.

There is a law, there is a labour law which says bring your money, you bring your technology and the Investment Act specifies that as to how many people you can bring and the Ministry of Labour specifies.

QUESTION 11: You have a previous connection to Taiwan am I right?

SATA: Taiwan is China isn’t it? Taiwan is a Chinese organisation who rebelled against their mainland because they did not agree with their democratic principles.

They are all Chinese, now you can fly from Beijing to Taipei. They are the same people, they speak the same language, they write the same way but they only differed because they did not agree with that commandist democracy.

QUESTION 12: But did the Taiwanese give you any money to run your campaign in 2006?

SATA: First of all when I come to see you, I don’t need money what I need is cooperation in preparation when we are in Government because the Taiwanese are people who took swamps and turned them.

Today you can go and see they are very attractive cities. If you look at South Korea they went to a place which was swamps today they changed that thing and those are the people who we developing countries require to come and help us to develop this country.

It is not the money campaigning because they give money I chew, I have cars, but because what we need is prepare ourselves to be like people who have struggled to be where they are.

Today we get more money from Nordic countries than from bigger countries and we are still praying bigger countries instead of recognising and appreciating what Nordic countries are doing.

I was once minister of Labour, Health, minister of Local Government and I saw the contribution of Nordic countries and very little you get from whoever is in Government.

China come they just break one soil and they say oh Chinese have given us a stadium, that stadium has been there for 47 years. That is election propaganda.

QUESTION 13: It seems to me that the Chinese are trying to get some goodwill among the Zambian people?

SATA: Not among the Zambian people, the Chinese are very crafty. I know the Chinese very well.

The Chinese would like to be very close to the Government of the day. The Chinese would like to be very close to the party in Government that is why the Chinese are doing everything they can to MMD and once the Chinese see there is a wind of change you find Chinese will be very different.

The Chinese fought in this country or in Africa during the cold war. We knew very little about China during the cold war.

We knew very little about China, we knew Russia. When we are talking of communism we are talking of Russia.

The Chinese were just a small component within that so you find at the moment the party and the Government are exploiting the Chinese because they don’t have the language to people but exploit them by saying we are breaking the stone for an Independence Stadium.

Now if you break the stone today when are people going to play football in the stadium?

You don’t break a stone today and tomorrow people start playing football.

QUESTION 14: What about the recent incident of Collum Mine where 11 Zambian workers were shot at by Chinese mine bosses, I am sure you have also heard about this incident, what is your reaction when something like this happens?

SATA: Well what I am trying to say is I would like to appeal to all investors and all the people in Zambia to exercise maximum tolerance especially when playing with firearms because firearm does not only maim, they kill, that is why I am talking about the law.

The law should not discriminate; the law should deal with the law breaker in the same way it would deal with any other law breaker.

That was a very unfortunate incidence. For them to resort to that, the differences must have been much higher than what our ears and eyes can see.

QUESTION 15: Do you have any predictions for the future about the China-Zambia relationship?

SATA: What I am trying to say is that Zambia needs warm predictable relationships.
Denmark should not only help us one way track, Denmark should also benefit because Zambia has certain things which Denmark hasn’t got.

Denmark has a technology which Zambia hasn’t got so it is not only the Chinese, the Indians or that.

What we need is to respect each others’ sovereignty and integrity, exchange ideas and on that basis, we can develop much faster than we are today, without being selective. We can develop much faster.

QUESTION 16: So you wouldn’t make some new rules or some new conditions or some new restrictions regarding the relationship with the Chinese?

SATA: The point is the laws have already made restrictions. Some people are saying I am talking to you people because I want to bring back the gay and lesbians and I tell them to say listen, the laws of Zambia recognise gayism, the laws of Zambia recognise lesbians.

And the laws of Zambia have provided restrictions and when you go all-over the world, there is not any single country which has not provided restrictions for those things, those are cheap propaganda, the laws are there what we need is to implement the laws.

QUESTION 17: So now do think the current Government is doing their job?

SATA: The current Government is so corrupt, when you are corrupt you can’t do anything right.

When you are corrupt you can’t do anything right because in English which you and I have learnt, he who pays the piper plays the tune, that is the problem of corruption because for example in Zambia today, we have ZNBC, we have Zambia Daily Mail, we have Times of Zambia, we have young men of integrity, the good Journalists who would even be better than Journalists of The Post or other independent newspapers.

But when you have a lope sided Government policy the young men and women there, they just watch.

For example when Africa got independence, Africans did not have their own newspaper, it is the BBC and your European broadcasting and newspapers which criticised the settlers, the colonial government here which made those people in German and Britain and everywhere to see but at the moment anybody who wants to be independent is dismissed.

You are dismissing a young reporter and leaving somebody who is Like Zambia Daily Mail, the person who is there is old and on a contract. Those are the difficulties.
If you want development, when I was governor in UNIP days we were so scared of Times of Zambia, Zambia Daily Mail and ZNBC because they revealed our weaknesses and we worked.

When there was cholera by that time, there was no private media, when there was cholera, it was Times of Zambia and Zambia Daily Mail, and ZNBC who revealed about those things but now you want them to be singing praises for Rupiah Banda, singing praises for George Kunda, it would be very difficult for them to come and change and be what they have been.

QUESTION 18: Do you think there is any corruption going on between Chinese and the Government?

SATA: Plenty of it because for example I will give you a very simple example.
The man who was with Rupiah Banda yesterday at the stadium is vice prime minister.

How can a vice prime minister be with the State president? Under the International Protocol, if it was a Chinese State president then our local president should go there.

If that man is vice prime minister he was supposed to be with George Kunda but if he goes with George Kunda, Rupiah Banda is not very sure how much the China man is going to give George Kunda so he has to go with him himself.

You see things we are doing in Zambia in particular are things which are not going on in Europe.

You find here in Zambia a president meeting a second class civil servant, here in Zambia.

And when our president travels abroad he is met by deputy minister now those are things which we have to change, we might be poor but we are human beings, we might be poor, we have the honour.

QUESTION 19: Do you see the Chinese as some new colonisers who want take what they want and then leave?

SATA: No. The Chinese you have to bear in mind, the population of China. If Zambia had the same population as China, the current Government would not know what to do with it but the Chinese they know they have the largest country they have the largest population and they have to provide social services for their people and if they have to provide social services for their people they have to be extremely aggressive economically.

That is why you find that the Chinese have sprung out all over the World to protect their environment at home.

Sometimes they work under very difficult conditions and when they work under very difficult conditions that is why wherever they go they have the Bank of China so that all the Chinese will put money in the Bank of China so that that money can help the Chinese people and I hope one day Africa will do the same.

They come here they are not looking for luxuries. There will be 60 people in room like this one but what they want is that all the Chinese must benefit and that is what we the PF stands for, to fight for those who have no voice, to fight for those who cannot stand.

QUESTION 20: Do you think you have a chance of winning the next elections?

SATA: We have always been winning the elections but the point is when there is starvation, when there is poverty you see the way we run elections in Africa is different with the way you run elections in Denmark.

In Africa the dull person wins and the intelligent one loses because people running ECZ are poor, people running the office of the president are also poor and have nowhere to run to. So those are the difficulties.
Thank You

Former Communications and Transport Minister in Second Republican President Fredrick Chiluba’s government William Harrington has said Zamtel now owned by Libya’s Lap Green is under threat following the sanctioned imposed on Libya.

Mr. Harrington said following the economic sanctions being imposed on Libya’s government which has affected Libya’s investments in other countries, Zamtel is also at risk of collapse.

He said that it was important for government to start working out a plan to ensure that the company does not crumble should the effects of the sanctions extend to Zambia.

He said the company has a number of Zambians in its workforce whose jobs are threatened.

Mr. Harrington has also backed former republican vice President Enock Kavindele’s call on government to start mobilising local investors and individuals to take over Zamtel in case economic sanctions on Libya incapacitate its operations.

Lap Green Networks owns 75 per cent of Zamtel after buying the country’s sole fixed line operator at US $257 million in a controversial deal.

LAP Green Network is a component of the Libya-Africa Investment Portfolio, which is part of the Libyan Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund for Libya.

QFM

The Bank of Zambia has finished receipting submissions over the restructuring and consequent sale of Finance Bank.

The Central Bank took over operations at the financial institution on reasons of unsound banking practices.

To this effect, the Bank of Zambia had until March 17th been receiving written submissions from various stakeholders after a public hearing meeting on March 9th 2011.

Bank of Zambia Head of Public Relations, Kanguya Mayondi says the central bank is still compiling data from the submissions made over a period of about seven days.

Meanwhile, the Zambia Union for Financial Institutions and Allied Workers has reaffirmed the need to hasten but efficiently process the sale of Finance Bank.

ZUFIAW President, Cephas Mukuka noted that the general public and other concerned stakeholders are anxiously waiting for future developments at Finance bank.
[ MUVI ]

United Party for National Development (UPND) Mazabuka central Member of Parliament Garry Nkombo has described the breaking up of the UPND/PF pact as the most difficult and terrible time for the opposition political parties.

Giving his personal view to QFM yesterday Mr. Nkombo says that the demise of the pact should be blamed on the failure by the pact partners to understand each other.

Mr. Nkombo says though he is personally displeased by the decision of the UPND to break away from the PACT, he believes the action was God’s intervention.

He says the relationship between the two parties was not good for them to form government.

Mr. Nkombo has appealed to Zambians to understand that the relationship of the two political parties was going to be a perfect ingredient to put the nation on fire.

He further noted that among the factors that made the PACT fail was that the two political parties never trusted each other.

Mr. Nkombo observed that there was a heavy hand in the Patriotic Front that did not want to see the PACT succeed.

And Mr. Nkombo has stated that the PF does not have what it takes to revive the failed political alliance.
[ QFM ]

UPND Leader Hakainde Hichilema has described PF leader Michael Sata as a liar and a dishonest person. Mr Hichilema said that it was unfortunate that Mr. Sata who is seeking public and political office can go on Radio to tell Zambians lies about him.

He said that it was a blatant lie for Mr. Sata to mislead the public that the two leaders have been meeting after the collapse of the political pact.

Mr. Hichilema was speaking this morning when he contributed to a live-phone in programme dubbed ‘Lusaka Star’ on UNZA radio. He said that dishonesty by Mr. Sata was the order of the day even when the two parties were in the pact.

And Mr Hichilema said that his party wanted to agree on policies with PF Leader Michael Sata before forming government because they suspected Mr. Sata could have introduced gay and lesbian rights.

He said that the UPND did not want Mr. Sata to pull a surprise by introducing gay and lesbian rights once in authority.

Mr Sata recently told journalists from Denmark that Zambia has laws that recognise Gay and Lesbian rights which only need implementation.

The church and civil society organisations have since roundly condemned Mr Sata for advocating gay rights.

[ZNBC]