Maravi

Govt has insatiable appetite for power - Lubinda

Govt has insatiable appetite for power - Lubinda
By Moses Kuwema
Thu 29 July 2010, 04:00 CAT

PF spokesperson Given Lubinda has charged that the MMD government has an insatiable appetite for power and wants to control the thinking of people.

Commenting on the government’s proposal to have the Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services appoint board members to sit on the new Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) without Parliament’s approval, Lubinda said such a board would not be answerable to the Zambians.

“I can assure you that the IBA board which will be appointed by information minister Lieutenant General Ronnie Shikapwasha will not be answerable to the Zambians. It will be answerable to Shikapwasha, who himself is answerable to the adoption committee of MMD,” Lubinda said yesterday.

“In effect the IBA board will be a tool for MMD. So all private radio stations will be faced with closure and you my friends in the private media, I will encourage you to increase the number of legal experts that you have because you should be prepared for long legal battles.”

He said the government wanted to centralize power.

“This is all the question of power and our colleagues in government seem to have a very insatiable appetite for power, they want to control the thinking of society. Pretty soon they will attempt to legislate how people talk but they don’t realize that power is only good when there are checks and balances,” he said.

“Power that has no checks and balances corrupts and our colleagues don’t realize that they are actually trapping themselves.”

Lubinda said the PF was against the idea of depositing so much power in an individual.

“And remember that these positions are temporally, the minister of information today will not be the same in two years, while the one that we have might have good intentions, you never know the intentions of the next and how they will use this power,” he said.

Lubinda urged media institutions around the country to mount a vigorous campaign against the proposed amendments.

“Let people react and say they don’t want their thinking to be controlled by the minister, because in short what this government wants to do is to control the thinking and opinions of people, that is wrong. Society has to take this challenge and protect itself. How many are even aware of the machinations of Shikapwasha over the IBA? Very few,” said Lubinda.

“The timing for this is totally wrong. Obviously if you ask my friends in MMD, they are excited that they are doing this amendment now in time for the 2011 elections next year because they know that people will be dancing to their tunes and they will make sure that most of our radio stations are gagged.

“I’m sad that the Zambian people were denied sufficient votes for the opposition in Parliament by those renegade PF/UPND MPs who decided that for all intent and purposes they will be surrogate MMD, now because of that whatever government tries to push through Parliament goes through without much ado,” said Lubinda.

Labels: GIVEN LUBINDA, INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING ACT, MMD, PRESS FREEDOM, REGULATION

posted by MrK @ 11:24 AM