Maravi

Zambian Airways

Zambian Airways
By Editor
Sunday September 07, 2008 [04:00]

Opportunism and opportunists never cease to amaze us. We have seen it before, we are seeing it now and we will see it again. When the going seems easy, opportunists are the loudest and lofty champions of virtue.

Over our seventeen years of existence as a newspaper, we have been condemned by many people in succeeding governments for taking an uncompromising stance on principles. They have found our determination to fight, even when we are the only ones fighting, difficult to understand. They cannot understand what drives us or what keeps us going because they are opportunists, bamuselela kwakaba, driven by ease and expedience.

Even though we have been attacked by people in government many times, where do they run to when they are sacked or expelled from the ruling party? Who gives them the opportunity to be heard? Isn’t it here, isn’t it The Post?
Why do we do this? Why do we allow people who fought us when they were in power to use our newspaper to air their views? These are the same people who when in power call us unprofessional and disrespectful journalists.

We allow people to be heard, regardless of what they did to us when they were in power, because it is their fundamental right to be heard. It’s a principle that we must defend, even if circumstances make it unpalatable. Who did more harm to The Post than Frederick Chiluba and his tandem of thieves? And yet we ensure that he has fair access to The Post even when we do not agree with him.

If Chiluba, a man who threw us in jail countless times can have the right to express his opinion through our newspaper, why not us? Why should we not have the right to express our opinions in our own newspaper? The people attacking us for expressing our opinions about them are themselves busy expressing opinions about us and themselves in the media they control, to which we have no access.

The issues that are at play are not personal issues – they are not about whether Ng’andu Magande or Rupiah Banda is a more likeable man. The issues are about the welfare and destiny of the 12 million Zambians. Surely, are we not expected not to express opinions?

We have never been opportunists and we never will be. We do not jump on bandwagons. We have never shied away from a good fight if we believe principles are being compromised for expedience.
Let all those opportunists who want to fight us know that we have always been in for the long haul.
Opportunists are wolves, mercenaries fighting for nothing except their stomachs. They are not prepared to make any real sacrifices and have no real interests in public good.

If this is what The Post was - a mercenary organisation – we would not have survived the onslaught of the brutal Chiluba regime. We invite those who want to take us on to study what we have stood for, to understand what drives us. We strive to make sure that personal benefit and vainglory are far away from us.

We need to say this very clearly. We do not care what we lose if at the end of the day we can stand and look back and say ‘we made a contribution to society’. This newspaper was not founded with a lot of money or on money. It is a product of principles and adherence to the most noble of ideas. Yes, being principled has a price and we have always been prepared to pay the price.

We are not in a business of singing of lullabies for politicians as they sleep ignoring national interest. We have never found a politician who does not enjoy praise, but we are nobody’s praise singer. Our job is to inform the public so that they in turn can make informed choices.
We will express our opinions and do so forcefully as long as we believe principles are being compromised.

The history of this newspaper is a very humble one. We never forget where we come from. Money and privilege have never been an issue to us, they have never tortured our minds. Yes, like all normal human beings, we like to enjoy what we can from our labour, a good life. But this has never been our driving force. If it was, we would have chosen an easier course; a way of leisure and peace where we do not make anybody uncomfortable. If we chose this route, we will be useless and of no value to our country and our people.

We want those who are attacking us to understand that to attack what they consider our commercial interests in order to beat us into submission, to yield to their greed and vanity, is a grave misjudgement, a failure to understand where we are coming from.
As we have developed the newspaper, we have made very conscious decisions to make contributions to our society in areas where there might be no discernible profits, where others might run away. We do a lot of things for the love of our country.

We distribute our newspaper to virtually every corner of our country to keep our people informed of what is going on in their country. We go to places where there is no commercial reason for doing so. This is the choice we have made. This is our contribution.
We invested in the now defunct Profit Magazine when few would have done so. At this point in time, we hold 40 per cent of Zambian Analysis magazine; a venture which we consider noble but commercially precarious.

If we do not develop our country, who will? Our investment in Zambian Airways in late 2007 was not about pomposity. We invested in people we believed in, a cause that we saw as good for our country. We have been in business for a long time and know the risks of business. But we still chose to invest in Zambian Airways because we believe that it is a business that this country needs. In a very difficult economic environment, we have been impressed by the determination, sincerity and honesty of the promoters of that project.

We are convinced that if the Nchito brothers were not committed to this country, they could have abandoned that project a long time ago. We are also encouraged by their attitude that does not overly inflate the value of material things. How many of us know that the Nchito brothers have been working on that project for the last ten years? Where have you heard them saying they own that business?

When we examined this business, we were impressed by the commitment of the owners. The chief executive officer of Zambian Airways is the only chief executive officer that we know who has never drawn a pay cheque or an allowance of any form. He does not even drive a car from the business and he lives in his own house – not a company house. To us, this is a compelling business case, one we feel obliged to support. It is not about money. It is about the principle, ethic of hard work, clearness and nobleness of the motive behind this project.

The Post is not the wealthiest business in this country. But we were happy to stake our US $3 million in this business. The Post does not get any ngwee, kwacha, cent or dollar from Zambian Airways. Even the directors of Zambian Airways do not, unlike other directors, receive any sitting or other allowances.
This business has grown from a turnover of US $3 million in 2002 to US $40 million in 2008. And not a single cent of this has ended up in our pockets.

We know that there are those who want to kill this business because one of its shareholders, ourselves, have been critical of Rupiah Banda and the people that surround his campaign for the presidency. Does Rupiah want to start his bid for the presidency by killing one of the biggest indigenously-owned Zambian companies?

We are not surprised people believe that others look at material things the way they themselves do. We will not change our stance on Rupiah Banda just to save Zambian Airways or any other commercial interest of ours. We apologise to our friends in Zambian Airways but we are confident that they understand that a matter of principle is a matter of principle and cannot be negotiated or compromised upon.
If Rupiah and his cohorts want to kill the only meaningful airline this country has seen since the assassination of the state-owned Zambia Airways fifteen years ago, so be it. It will not be us to judge him, the people will.

As Hakainde Hichilema has said, this should tell the Zambian people where we are headed, where these opportunistic and intolerant characters are taking them.
We are surprised that a government that has been preaching citizens’ economic empowerment and has even set up a commission to advance that can attack a Zambian-owned business for political reasons.

We are surprised that the Ministry of Transport can try to destroy a company, Zambian Airways, that has grown from carrying 30,000 passengers per annum in 2002 to carrying 250,000 passengers in 2008. This is the government that says tourism is its number two priority. We are not surprised because Chiluba and his tandem of thieves did the same with the state-owned Zambia Airways, QZ.

Look at what Kenyans have done with their Kenya Airways. Rather than kill it, they grew it and now we are admiring an airline that was no match for our QZ.
The accusation that Magande promised The Post money for Zambian Airways in return for political support is so ridiculous, so stupid. It can only come from empty heads. We hope Zambian Airways will take the opportunity to explain what role the Minister of Transport and her ministry have played in this matter.

Labels: ZAMBIAN AIRWAYS

posted by MrK @ 3:34 AM