Sweet revenge for Zambia

The Zambia national soccer team’s victory over South Africa in the Nelson Mandela Challenge has lifted the spirit of many soccer fans who were getting disgruntled over the team’s failure to win away matches.

That was Zambia’s first away win from the time they lifted their inaugural Cup of Nations in Libreville, Gabon early this year. They lost the match to Sudan 2-0 during the 2014 World Cup qualifier match in Khartoum, only for FIFA to hand Zambia three points when it was discovered that our opponents had fielded an ineligible player. That ruling has since been contested by Sudan. Another away match was a 1-0 loss to resurgent Uganda in Kampala in the two-legged 2013 African Nations Qualifier match. Zambia went on to win that match on penalties.    

Interestingly, the win recorded by the Chipolopolo in the Nelson Mandela Challenge Cup played at Soccer City in Johannesburg was the fifth victory in 15 official matches played between the two sides. That gives Zambia a slight edge over South Africa who have four wins and six draws. 

The South African Football Association had requested Zambia to assemble a strong team in that match and the Chipolopolo coach, Herve Renard responded by fielding 10 players from the 11 who started in the Nations Cup final against Ivory Coast in February this year. The team responded by beating Bafana Bafana side 1-0 in their own home turf. Although the match is usually played in a friendly atmosphere, it is an important competition that every team that takes part craves to win. And last night, it was Zambia’s chance to lift the cup which was inaugurated in 1994, soon after South Africa got its independence. The competition was held in celebration of the historic achievement and it was called the Nelson Mandela Inauguration Challenge Cup.

Coming to the match itself, it was a fair display by the African Champions on that difficult pitch which was rushed to host the match after it was used for a musical show during the previous weekend. South Africa, who will host the 2013 African Nations Cup tournament started brightly but missed a number of chances in the early stages of the match.

Zambia settled very well and dictated play in the dying minutes of the first half and could have gone 1-0 up threw a Jacob Mulenga free kick but his shot went wide. Jacob was making his return to the team after missing the Africa Cup due to an injury that side-lined him for almost a year. He wasn’t at his best but he showed a few glimpses of what we have been missing in our team. Power Dynamos’ Mukuka Mulenga was very outstanding when he was introduced in the second half, so was Collins Mbesuma, whose performance had gone down in recent months. He scored a rocket goal and would have won a penalty when he was brought down in the 18 yard area by Bongani Khumalo. His other shot was stopped by Itumuleng Khune. Defender Stophila Nsunzu deserved his man of the match prize in that match. His performance was brilliant!

Zambia took part in the first game of the Mandela Challenge in 1994 and lost 2-1, so last night’s victory was sweet revenge for the African Champions who will soon defend the title they won this year.

By-elections, my viewpoint

By winning the Mufumbwe by-election, the Patriotic Front (PF) have proved that for all their sins, both real and perceived, they do not lack a spine — and still less a communal belief in their ability to win the most formidable odds.

The PF went into this election with all signs pointing to another loss in North Western Province, a vast area where they have had no representation in parliament. They came up against a combined force of the Movement for Multi-party (MMD) and the United Party for National Development (UPND). But with this victory, they have shown that they are a force to reckon with in the local politics. According to media reports, Stephen Masumba got 8,135 votes, defeating his closest rival from the MMD, Stafford Mulusa who had 5,468 votes.    

Despite the undesirable way in which the by-election came about, it was a litmus test for the PF to convince voters in this part of the country that they too should jump on the boat.  I am not a fan of such elections caused by personal ambitions rather than love for the nation. If Masumba loved this country and the people of Mufumbwe, he would have stuck to his party and save the billions of kwacha that was poured into this election. The by-election in Mufumbwe was unnecessary considering that Masumba went against his party rules and regulations by accepting a job in the government.

By elections are needless ventures that cost our government billions of kwacha needed in the education, health and other social sectors of our country. Public service delivery in this country is in a crisis. Schools record well over 80 pupils in a class against one teacher. Long queues are a common feature in our clinics, with many citizens opting to treat illnesses in their homes because of lack of confidence in public health institutions. This country needs these resources wasted in bye-election to deal with the various challenges facing our people.  

Too many of our people are denied access to services such as health and education. The hardships endured by people in poor communities are often hidden and thus perpetuated by the statistical averages on which decisions about resource allocation are based. Because averages lump everyone together, the poverty of some is obscured by the wealth of others. One consequence of this is that people already disadvantaged remain excluded from essential services.

The PF government must pull its energies and resources to eradicate these inequalities that have weakened our society. The PF won the 2011 tripartite elections on the premise that they will promote collective dreams as opposite to individual visions. By winning the Mufumbwe by-election, the people in that area have given Masumba a job and an income but there is no immediate benefit for them. Votes have been counted and the PF victory secured, but the local people are back to the real world facing the same poverty that has been haunting them together with their children. Their children need education, better health services and above all better life.

If I was given a chance to change the way to run affairs of this country, one thing I would change would be by-elections. They are unnecessary and a waste of resources! Surely, there should be a better way of filling vacancies created by either a resignation or death. A by-election is not anywhere near that solution.  

Six-hour long wait for Panadol

His Excellency, Mr. Michael Sata sprung on to the political driving seat as president of Zambia after convincingly defeating incumbent president Rupiah Banda in the 2011 tripartite elections. 

Throughout his ten-year as opposition leader Mr. Sata portrayed himself as a champion of ordinary Zambians rather than the wealthy. Indeed the folks at the very top in this country don't need another champion in state house; they will always have a seat at the table. Based on this promise, many Zambians gave him the vote in order to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor which has been spiralling over the years.

 

The victory by Mr. Sata redeemed the lost hopes of many poor Zambians whose lives had deteriorated during the twenty-year-old rule of the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD). Mr Sata may have benefited by the rolled-up sleeves images of his rushing to the side of victims of the MMD policies which seemed to favour the rich but today his stay in power is threatened by the slow speed of his government to deal with problems such as those in the health sector.

The six-hour long wait that I was subjected to at a government clinic only to receive across-the-counter painkillers (panadol or paracetamol) for my two-year-old boy with high fever reveals the crumbling effects of the healthcare system in Zambia. The situation in public health institutions requires urgent attention from government. Patient queues and waiting times are long, averaging 2 hours. More seriously, the length of time being spent on patient care is being compromised.

Statistics show that the health system suffered under the burden of government austerity measures designed to tame inflation and tighten fiscal discipline during the MMD rule. In 2010 the World Bank reported that the health system suffers from staff vacancies of more than 33%, while 69% of professional posts are unfilled, with “doctors, nurses, midwives, lab technicians in acute shortage”. It added that “the human resources situation in Zambia is in a state of crisis”.

The Ministry of Health acknowledges the staff shortages in the nation’s 2011 National Action Plan, which states that the total number of staff in the health sector is 29 533 or 57% of the approved establishment.

The challenges in the sector are hugely complicated by the undesirable attitude of some of the staff currently occupying positions in health institutions. Surely, how can one explain a situation where nurses report for work and spend over an hour talking about the kitchen party that took place over the weekend when patients are waiting to be attended to? Why should patients requiring agent attention also stay in the queue together with those who can walk and have come on their own? Such issues do not require the president to come down and supervise the staff. What are the people tasked with supervising others doing?

The lack of drugs and equipment in health institutions is another serious issue that requires immediate government attention. It is not enough to let patients with serious complications wait at the clinic for five hours only to be administered with panadol and given a prescription to buy expensive drugs which are not in stock at the health centre. If this is the situation in Lusaka, how about in rural areas where people have to walk long distances to the health centre only to find a crumbling building and no medical officer in sight.

The government needs to seriously invest in local health institutions to help those who can’t afford medical treatment abroad. After all, treatment junkets abroad by politicians and those close to power have cost taxpayers billions of kwacha.  Government officials and well-off Zambians can only use public health institutions if they are improved and they can only invest in institutions that they also use.

J'burg through my lens

As the saying goes, one man’s food is another man’s poison. 

What happens in Johannesburg can’t happen in Zambia. Strolling along the streets of Johannesburg I would come across some youth selling pornographic videos openly displayed for customers to sample. I wondered how many of those youth would fill our Zambian prisons. The offence committed by such people is clear and you would be charged with “selling obscene material likely to corrupt morals”. 

I have worked in the Zambian media for more than ten years. I have a wife and three lovely kids. In 2002, I joined Catholic Media Services and six years later, I led a crew that filmed and edited a programme that won the prestigious CNN Award for the best HIV/AIDS reporting in Africa. A year later I received a personal award by the Media Institute of South Africa for the best HIV/AIDS reporting and human rights. In 2011, I got the World Bank-funded award for an investigative story on the dire situation of water and sanitation and the gross management of funds in the sector. The prize was a World Bank-funded three-month internship programme at the Mail & Guardian Centre for Investigative Journalism, amaBhungane in South Africa.

My three months in Johannesburg was no fun. I realised just how difficult investigative journalism can be. I had to make calls to get people’s comments and reactions to the stories I was working on. Sometimes people hung up on me. More often than not, a company secretary would answer the phone and take my message but the call would never be returned.

My thoughts quickly turned to my country and the on-going debate about the introduction of the Freedom of Information Bill, which was introduced to Parliament in 2002 and later withdrawn. 

I realised how important the Access to Information Act in South Africa is in helping journalists to access publicly held information and make our job a little easier. Here, compared to Zambia, you can actually compel public officials to give you the information you need when it is in the public’s interest. In Zambia it is a different story.

At home I have to deal with mistrust from those who possess information, no access to official documents, threats and, sometimes, intimidation. There are lessons to be learnt from South Africa. By entrenching an independent right of access to information rather than leaving it to be protected by the right to freedom of expression, as has generally been the case in international human rights instruments, South Africans underscored their commitment to creating a free and open society.

Having been married for some time, three months in Johannesburg was like three years. I rented a house in one of the suburbs and tried to embrace my newfound solitude, forcing myself to remember the pleasures of bachelorhood, collecting take-out menus from every restaurant in the neighbourhood. But take-out food didn’t taste so good anymore, and the silence irked me. It was so difficult knowing that back home I had someone who had stuck by my side all these years and who was irritated by my constant travels. I realised how important she was to my life when I came back from the shops only to realise that I had forgotten to buy salt.

“Welcome to Johannesburg!” I was told. “It is a city where you will never learn exactly how public transport works,” someone remarked when I enquired about this. For sure, it takes time to get used to this huge city. It took me a while to navigate my way through the taxi and bus systems. At times I wasn’t sure whether I have to raise one finger or five fingers when stopping the taxi. Unlike in Zambia, in Joburg taxis are small buses, which carry about 16 to 18 (30) people. In my country they are referred to as mini-buses and are operated by two people, a driver and his assistant. There it is a one-man show and passengers have to sort themselves out when it comes to paying the fare and opening the door for those leaving or coming on the bus – I mean taxi.

My first day on the Metrobus revealed something that was unusual for me – a woman driving a Marcopolo bus. Where are the men? I wondered to myself as I stepped on the bus. There unlike in Zambia it was normal. I have never seen a woman driving a big bus. It was so encouraging for the womenfolk to get involved in such kind of jobs. After all, men and women have the same abilities.

Another surprising thing to me was that some of these buses are actually owned by local municipalities. In Zambia we were advised by the Bretton Woods institutions that government had no business in business. Public transport in Zambia is run by the private sector. 

I watched in awe as a young man clipped people’s hair in open space along a street in the city. No roof above your head or a mirror for the customer to monitor the work done, you just have to place all your trust in the barber man.

As I turned my back on Johannesburg for home, I felt encouraged by what I had learnt during my stay at the Mail & Guardian. Inspired by my colleagues’ way of working, I felt encouraged about the career I chose. I also realised that investigative journalism is not for the faint-hearted. Courage alone is not enough to succeed; you need to work hard and have a desire to do something different.

J'burg through my lens

As the saying goes, one man’s food is another man’s poison. What happens in Johannesburg can’t happen in Zambia. Strolling along the streets of Johannesburg I would come across some youth selling pornographic videos openly displayed for customers to sample. I wondered how many of those youth would fill our Zambian prisons. The offence committed by such people is clear and you would be charged with “selling obscene material likely to corrupt morals”. 

I have worked in the Zambian media for more than ten years. I have a wife and three lovely kids. In 2002, I joined Catholic Media Services and six years later, I led a crew that filmed and edited a programme that won the prestigious CNN Award for the best HIV/AIDS reporting in Africa. A year later I received a personal award by the Media Institute of South Africa for the best HIV/AIDS reporting and human rights. In 2011, I got the World Bank-funded award for an investigative story on the dire situation of water and sanitation and the gross management of funds in the sector. The prize was a World Bank-funded three-month internship programme at the Mail & Guardian Centre for Investigative Journalism, amaBhungane in South Africa.

My three months in Johannesburg was no fun. I realised just how difficult investigative journalism can be. I had to make calls to get people’s comments and reactions to the stories I was working on. Sometimes people hung up on me. More often than not, a company secretary would answer the phone and take my message but the call would never be returned.

My thoughts quickly turned to my country and the on-going debate about the introduction of the Freedom of Information Bill, which was introduced to Parliament in 2002 and later withdrawn. 

I realised how important the Access to Information Act in South Africa is in helping journalists to access publicly held information and make our job a little easier. Here, compared to Zambia, you can actually compel public officials to give you the information you need when it is in the public’s interest. In Zambia it is a different story.

At home I have to deal with mistrust from those who possess information, no access to official documents, threats and, sometimes, intimidation. There are lessons to be learnt from South Africa. By entrenching an independent right of access to information rather than leaving it to be protected by the right to freedom of expression, as has generally been the case in international human rights instruments, South Africans underscored their commitment to creating a free and open society.

Having been married for some time, three months in Johannesburg was like three years. I rented a house in one of the suburbs and tried to embrace my newfound solitude, forcing myself to remember the pleasures of bachelorhood, collecting take-out menus from every restaurant in the neighbourhood. But take-out food didn’t taste so good anymore, and the silence irked me. It was so difficult knowing that back home I had someone who had stuck by my side all these years and who was irritated by my constant travels. I realised how important she was to my life when I came back from the shops only to realise that I had forgotten to buy salt.

“Welcome to Johannesburg!” I was told. “It is a city where you will never learn exactly how public transport works,” someone remarked when I enquired about this. For sure, it takes time to get used to this huge city. It took me a while to navigate my way through the taxi and bus systems. At times I wasn’t sure whether I have to raise one finger or five fingers when stopping the taxi. Unlike in Zambia, in Joburg taxis are small buses, which carry about 16 to 18 (30) people. In my country they are referred to as mini-buses and are operated by two people, a driver and his assistant. There it is a one-man show and passengers have to sort themselves out when it comes to paying the fare and opening the door for those leaving or coming on the bus – I mean taxi.

My first day on the Metrobus revealed something that was unusual for me – a woman driving a Marcopolo bus. Where are the men? I wondered to myself as I stepped on the bus. There unlike in Zambia it was normal. I have never seen a woman driving a big bus. It was so encouraging for the womenfolk to get involved in such kind of jobs. After all, men and women have the same abilities.

Another surprising thing to me was that some of these buses are actually owned by local municipalities. In Zambia we were advised by the Bretton Woods institutions that government had no business in business. Public transport in Zambia is run by the private sector. 

I watched in awe as a young man clipped people’s hair in open space along a street in the city. No roof above your head or a mirror for the customer to monitor the work done, you just have to place all your trust in the barber man.

As I turned my back on Johannesburg for home, I felt encouraged by what I had learnt during my stay at the Mail & Guardian. Inspired by my colleagues’ way of working, I felt encouraged about the career I chose. I also realised that investigative journalism is not for the faint-hearted. Courage alone is not enough to succeed; you need to work hard and have a desire to do something different.