PATRIOTIC Front (PF) leader Michael Sata has lost direction, the office of the second Republican president Frederick Chiluba has said.

Featuring on Joy FM’s Platform programme, Dr Chiluba’s spokesperson Emmnuel Mwamba said the former president had in 2006 supported Mr Sata because he had raised attractive issues.

Mr Mwamba, however, said Dr Chiluba had chosen to support President Rupiah Banda because of his good leadership as opposed to Mr Sata who had been inconsistent in the recent past.

“A lot has happened between 2006 and now, and Dr Chiluba’s choice should be respected because dynamics in politics have changed,” he said.

He said Mr Sata had been inconsistent on several issues such as the windfall taxes and the Constitution review process which he had initially supported but later changed positions.

In 2009, Dr Chiluba did not see stability in Mr Sata’s leadership, hence his support for Mr Banda.

Mr Sata was also not telling the truth by claiming that he had been given a dossier on Dr Chiluba by late president Levy Mwanawasa.

Mr Mwamba said Mr Sata should never think that he had done any favour for Dr Chiluba because the former head of State did a lot to help the PF as he had encouraged people to join it.

He refuted allegations that the former president was actively involved in politics, saying he had no intentions of holding any elective or party office.

According to Zambia’s laws, former presidents could issue any statements because they had not lost their fundamental right of expression, he added.

Dr Chiluba’s support of President Banda should be respected, just like when he supported Mr Sata in 2006, Mr Mwamba said.

He said Dr Chiluba remained a man of great influence like Dr Kaunda and some people still appreciated what the two former leaders did for them.

[Times of Zambia]

A two year old boy of Dambwa North in Livingstone on Friday drowned after falling into a 20 litre container of water.

Southern Province Police Commanding Officer, Lemmy Kajoba confirmed the drowning of the boy to ZANIS in Livingstone yesterday.

Mr. Kajoba said the boy, Shula Mulenga, was sent to fetch water from an open container which was in the house.

He said it is suspected that the boy climbed on an object to fetch the water from the container and fell into the container, with head first.

He said the incident occurred at around 16:30 hours on Friday.

Mr. Kajoba said since there was no other person in the house, the boy drowned and died in the container.

He said people at home discovered what had happened when it was too late to save the child.

Mr. Kajoba said the matter was however under investigations to determine whether there was an element of negligence in the circumstances that led to the death of the child.

Meanwhile, investigations by ZANIS revealed that Mulenga was buried yesterday (Sunday, February 7).

Livingstone Deputy Mayor Aggrey Njekwa and former Town Clerk George Kalenga were among the mourners that attended the burial of the boy yesterday.

ZANIS

Vice President George Kunda has accused opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) leader, Hakainde Hichilema of gagging the party’s original philosophy of inclusiveness and non-tribalism stance.

Mr. Kunda said Mr. Hichilema’s going into a political pact with the Patriotic Front (PF) was against the ideals on which late UPND president Anderson Mazoka formed the party.

“When the late Mazoka formed the UPND, it was represented by all tribes, it had a national agenda but HH is selling the party for silver,” he said.

He said PF president, Michael Sata, with whom Mr. Hichilema has entered into a pact, was supporting tribalism as evidenced in the last Kasama parliamentary by-election campaigns where he (Sata) allegedly declared that his candidate should be supported and voted for because he comes from Kasama.

“Hakainde Hichilema is not a tribalist, but why has he gone into a pact with a self-confessed tribalist?” he asked.

Mr. Kunda was speaking when he addressed a public rally in Chisamba today.

He appealed to UPND Members of Parliament (MPs) not to allow their party to lose the ideology it had at its formation.

“Tribalism is illegal in this country. So I am appealing to MPs in the UPND to kick HH out if he is misleading the party” he said.

The Vice President disclosed that many members and sympathizers of the UPND have noted the differences in the UPND-PF pact and were therefore leaving it to join the MMD.

“Thousands of Zambians have seen the evil in the UPND-PF pact and so they are moving out. By 2011, the pact will be a shell,” he told the rally.

Mr. Kunda has unlike the pact, President Rupiah Banda was promoting love and non-tribalism.

He said the party had a bright future and hence should be supported by all Zambians.

He said government, under the MMD has performed very well in the education, health and agriculture sectors by building more schools, health centres and creating a fertilizer support programme for farmers.

Mr. Kunda said government was currently rehabilitation silos around the country to ensure that the grain produced by farmers was properly stored before it was sold or consumed.

“As a government, we are planning ahead to address the problems we have in Zambia. We are developing the sixth national development plan which will be implemented over a period of five year,” he said.

And speaking at the same rally, Chisamba Member of Parliament, Moses Muteteka appealed to government to consider degazeting some forestry land in his constituency if order to subdivide it for resettlement by the local people.

Mr. Muteteka said many more people in Chisamba were engaging into farming hence the need to allocate more land for agricultural activities.

Earlier, Mr. Kunda addressed commercial farmers in Chisamba where he declared that government will protect farmers’ interests in the country in order to guarantee food security in the country.

Mr. Kunda said farmers were playing a very important role in the economic development of the country hence the need to protect their interests.

He said government will address farmers’ interests in terms of promoting irrigation and providing small scale farmers with agriculture inputs such as fertilisers and seeds.

And Zambia National Farmers Union Vice President David Golden, who is also a farmer in Chisamba, said government’s agricultural policies have enabled the sector to grow massively in the last ten years.

Mr. Golden said Zambia was now self-sufficient in wheat, maize and Soya production.

He however asked government to ban wheat importation into the country because there was enough local wheat produced by Zambian farmers.

He however complained that fluctuations of the exchange rate of the Kwacha to the United States dollar have affected farmers’ profits.

Mr. Kunda was on a three day tour of Central province to interact with chiefs, local people to appreciate challenges they were facing and inspect development projects.

ZANIS

Former US president Jimmy Carter challenged African governments to speed up the legislation for access to information in their countries.

Mr. Carter regretted that even when all the other continents were claiming to have access to information laws in place, Africa had lagged far behind.He was speaking when he officially opened the African Regional Conference on the Right of Access informational in Ghana. Mr. Carter reminded the conference participants that access to information was a basic human right and a key factor in reducing corruption in government.

The former US president said access to information laws also increased the participation of women in decision making adding that he was amazed by reports that women in Liberia could not participate in politics and were being raped even with a woman president in office.

Mr. Carter who singled out South Africa as the only country that had passed the freedom of information law in Africa cited Zimbabwe as another country that had passed the same information Law which it had, however, twisted around to persecute people who released public information.

The African Regional conference on the right of access to information is the third major conference that the Carter center for Democracy Program has sponsored on freedom of information after the Atlanta Declaration in 2008 and the Lima declaration in Peru, South America in 2009.

Mr. Carter and Mrs. Rosalynn Carter have since left for Sudan to monitor the situation in that country before the presidential elections due in six weeks time.

Speaking yesterday when he chaired a high level panel discussion on transparency at the La palm Beach hotel in Accra during the on- going Right of Access to information conference organized by the Carter Center for Democracy program, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services Lt. Gen. Ronnie Shikapwasha assured the Conferenc that the Zambian Government will table the freedom of Information Bill immediately parliament resumes sitting this month.

Lt. Gen Shikapwasha said the Zambian Government has already reached an advanced stage in pushing for the legislation of the Freedom of information Act and was currently wrapping up its study of other models as advised by the World bank and the United Nations Development Programme UNDP to see which model would best suit the Zambian environment .

Gen. Shikapwasha said the Zambian administration under President Rupiah Banda was in a rush to pass the Freedom Of Information Bill and other media bills ,but was taking its time consulting widely so that it could come up with an -all embracing legal framework that would enhance people’s equitable access to public information .

The minister who cited cost as another factor that had weakened the pace for legislation, explained to the conference that the access to information, or freedom of Information Bill should not be viewed from the prism of being an exclusively media bill alone, but one that would benefit every citizen who might need information .

[ZANIS]

The Forum for Progressive Parties (FPP) has condemned the print media for publishing people especially women who are allegedly half naked .

FPP Secretary General (SG) Charles Kafumbo says the publishing of such pictures in the newspapers should be condemned by all concerned Zambians.

Mr. Kafumbo told ZANIS in an interview in Lusaka yesterday that it is high time that print media desist from publishing nude pictures in their newspapers.

He said it is immoral to publish pictures of women who are half naked adding that it corrupts the mind of people especially the children.

Mr. Kafumbo’s sentiments comes in the wake of publication of half naked women published in one of the tabloids and daily newspapers.

The Forum SG has since taken a swipe at Women Civil Organizations in the country over their silence to comment on half naked women.

He said the Forum would now start championing for the rights of women because the publishing of half naked women in the newspapers is tantamount to pornography.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kafumbo has advised women in the country to dress properly when they go out to functions because they should not blame the media if the find themselves in those circumstances.

He said indecent dressing especially among the women folk is against the values of the declaration of Zambia, a Christian nation.

ZANIS