Tuesday, February 20, 2007

‘Kalungu-Banda not Levy’s advisor’

‘Kalungu-Banda not Levy’s advisor’
By ANGELA CHISHIMBA

GOVERNMENT has said Mr Martin Kalungu-Banda is not an advisor to President Mwanawasa and therefore his comments on the vulture fund court case in London did not represent the views of the state. Chief Government spokesperson, Vernon Mwaanga, said in a statement in Lusaka yesterday that on February 16, Zambia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Anderson Chibwa, was authorised to write to the editor-in-chief of Newsnight programme of the BBC Television Centre, to correct the misleading report. The High Commissioner was told to react to a statement, which quoted Mr Kalungu-Banda as an advisor to the Zambian President.

"I am now releasing Mr Chibwa's letter to BBC for publication," Mr Mwaanga said. In the letter to the BBC, Mr Chibwa said Mr Kalungu-Banda was not President Mwanawasa's advisor. He said the report on the vulture fund threat to Third World countries on February 14, and Zambia’s loss of the vulture fund case sent on February 15, was factually incorrect in reference to Mr Kalungu-Banda as advisor to President Mwanawasa.

"Referring to recent statements in the news article, the BBC Newsnight has presented Mr Martin Kalungu-Banda as presidential advisor to the Zambian President, His Excellency Mr Levy P. Mwanawasa, SC.,” Mr Chibwa said. “The High Commission of the Republic of Zambia in London wishes to correct the impression portraying Mr Martin Kalungu-Banda as an advisor to the President."

Mr Chibwa said Mr Kalungu-Banda had no authority to pass comment on behalf of the Zambian government in this case.

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4 Comments:

At 2:10 PM , Blogger MrK said...

I don't see what the story is, or why this is all over the government newspapers. I don't remember Kalungu-Banda being presented as a government spokesperson - in fact his identification as 'an advisor' to President Mwanawasa makes that pretty clear. Governments and presidents have lots of advisors. So unless he has never been an advisor to President Mwanawasa, I don't see what the issue is. Other than trying to discredit on the report by dubious means.
What is the defensiveness all about?

Is Vernon Mwaanga one of the individuals who have taken a bribe to help out the vulture fund?

 
At 7:22 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oxfam under the UK government umbrella spent millions setting up Kalungu _Banda as special Consultant to the President of the Republic of Zambia ; former Senior Policy Advisor and head of the private sector team, Oxfam GB, this was his post up till he fell out with government on policy issues, the levi inaguration speech was if not a word by word writing of kalungu- Banda.
its annoying enough to read about these voulture funds without there being some fuss about whose who.
we all know chilubas "favourite charity" was hes political clonies.
and whilst hes worrying about friends he should stop using taxpayers money for hes medicare problems, am sure an ECG strip can be scanned and read by any cardiologist in the world on line for peanuts.

 
At 7:37 PM , Blogger MrK said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 7:40 PM , Blogger MrK said...

This website has him as a 'special consultant to president of teh Republica of Zambia'.

http://www.salzburgseminar.org/2005faculty.cfm?IDEvent=1032&IDBBS_People=120806

It's a storm in a teacup. No one in the documentary claimed that he was as spokesperson for anyone. He was identified as 'an advisor to'. I find it odd that this 'story' is all over the government papers.

It's as if they would rather talk about this, than about the details of the vulture fund saga.

 

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