UGLY AND COMPLICATED FOR ITS SIMPLICITY The new Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information Chanda Kasolo seems to have come into his office with the energy and noise of a balloon letting out air fast. He has not hit the ground running but instead he is flying round the room in the same manner a loose balloon letting air does. This appointment came soon after former PS Emmanuel Mwamba took the PF turf wars to ZNBC where he is reported to have gone and made personnel changes and given directives in the hope of influencing the internal PF succession wrangles. It appears it was a direct response by the cartel group to stop the momentum that was being built up by the Edgar Lungu team. This is the reason Chanda Kasolo was sent to the Ministry of Information. Upon his arrival he has made himself editor in Chief for the State run media. Suddenly Edgar Lungu the PF Secretary General is not getting coverage unless it is negative. We are told that even news items about The PF Secretary General are pulled of at the last minute. All that is bad enough but what seems to be totally off the wall is Chanda Kasolos attempts to gag the various different voices coming from the PF. Kasolo had to find a smart way of making sure that only the voice of a cartel from within the PF would be heard. Kasolo came up with a simple plan. The plan was to disguise the gagging, in the PF, of the dissenting voices to his appointing bosses as being a general edict to rule over all political parties. Kasolo said all political parties must notify his ministry of one single individual who would speak on behalf of each of the parties. How do you stop political parties from having their representatives all over the country speak through only one person when they need to be on Radio Mano, Lyambia, Ichengelo, Mosi-o-Tunya, Breeze and many others dotted all over the country on a daily basis? Which law gives Kasolo the power to regulate parties in this way? Zambian Watchdog has reported, Kasolo has annoyed EU diplomats by insisting that only one person from each political party must speak. His first act as PS was to announce that he has invited political parties to submit a name of one person to speak. This is the worst form of censorship since the end of the one party dictatorship in 1991. The plan was simple. Sometimes people say something is beautiful for its simplicity but in this case Kasolos plan, because of its simplicity, was stupid and ugly. One can say Kasolos plan is ugly and complicated for its simplicity.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 14:23:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015