Africa-Press – Zambia. Fellow country men and women, including fellow politicians, I note with concern how the media, to which everyone benefits in terms of information dissemination, has been left in the cold. For a start, a reminder would be ideal as to how the term 4th estate is coined, there are three organs of Government, the Executive, the Judiciary and the Legislature and the 4th is the media.
With the above statement, may I further, as a politician, citizen and consumer of both positive and negative criticism, sometimes even directed at myself from some struggling local media houses, categorically state that the central Government needs to listen now to the challenges the media is undergoing.
When a politician or an ordinary citizen wants to be heard, they run to the media and in this case am referring to the mainstream media which is composed of radio, television and print. Issues surrounding the media performance, human resource retention, better pay are lost and gagged into the illegality allowed by the regulatory authorities through handing out licenses against the digital migration policy because of either political influence or deals cut from dark corners.
The current scenario in the Zambian media, especially the television sector is suffocating and depriving the media of their own resources that is made through monthly subscriptions. As a citizen, I have taken time to study the challenges and clearly it is about time all the politicians and citizens alike stood with the sector because right now what is happening is illegal and cannot be allowed to continue.
Attached to the same, is the issue surrounding the Presidential handlers that fix appointments to meet the president on various matters of public concern. And by the way, why should it take the entire president to deal with matters that are supposed to be handled at ministerial level or/and regulatory level?
Could it be that the relevant bodies to these matters are already trapped in deep pockets of International crooked cartels fronting the media business from outside Zambia? The issue of poor pays or salaries is as a result of questionable individuals heading institutions that are supposed to deal with these problems and these would include regulators and Ministry of Information and Media.
From the grapevine, media owners are struggling to fix appointments with the President, whose victory was largely premised on the use of the same media that today still remain under choke-hold. This is despite the policy clearly stipulating the dos and don’ts, but still continues unabated, breaking these straightforward guidelines.
If I were the president, I would be so concerned with how my handlers perform through seeing the type of people that I will have visit me with matters of public interest. This should be compared with how many ordinary Zambians I have spoken to. The current status of the Presidential handlers is very alarming as a result of who they prefer to meet the President. Without using any sort of tired lame excuse of the usual phrase “the President has a busy schedule,” the questions must follow that busy doing what, when he clearly has no appointment with people that do not seem powerful enough to speak with him? Too busy for his own people that gave him the mandate through the ballot box?
As a Zambian, I find this extremely disappointing that a critical part of the 18 million plus population, the media, cannot have easy access to the head of state, all because of few big-headed handlers working from state house. However, people can fly in from other countries, sometimes unknown, only to be splattered with pictures of foreigners having met the very President whose time has been segmented only as desired by his handlers.
Understand that this is not about political party a, b or c, but the People of Zambia to which he is the President. And certain members of society are critical in dealing with day-to-day happenings in the country, therefore, his handlers must either be fired or cautioned to conduct themselves in an orderly manner much to the satisfaction of the Zambians that voted for him.
How possible is it that media houses from the Western world can fly in and meet the President, but the local media operators are not allowed access? For example, reporters from New York were in the country a few days ago and met with the President, while the local media owners are being fed with the same story of a busy schedule.
President Hakainde Hichilema, sort out your handlers’ misconduct and also clean the rot existing in the operations of the media which has come as a result of compromised and selfish individuals in various media institutions.
This is just briefly the bad treatment the media is receiving, I hope that the President addresses this problem once and for all, while also reminding his handlers that they should respect and accord Zambians, both Corporate and ordinary, the chance with the president they elected before foreigners.
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