March 25, 2010

MISA ZAMBIA CALLS FOR THE INCLUSION OF THE MEDIA UNDER THE WHISTLE BLOWERS BILL

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA Zambia) has submitted that the media should be specifically mentioned as a recipient of the Whistleblower information and should be protected for publishing that information, as long as they pass on all the relevant documents to investigative agencies, if required to do so in public interest.
Home affairs Minister, Lameck Mangani on February 23rd 2010 presented the Public Interest Disclosure Whistleblower Bill, NAB No. 12 of 2010 whose objective is to protect Whistleblowers who disclose information to government investigative agencies but not the media.
Making the submission to the committee on Legal Affairs, Governance, Human Rights and Gender Matters on March 2, 2010, MISA Zambia chairperson, Henry Kabwe expressed concern that media are not specifically mentioned in the draft Bill, in the sense that a whistleblower that chooses to disclose a misdeed in government or private institution shall not be protected by the Act.
Kabwe further states that the draft appears intent on discouraging whistleblowers from giving their information to the media. MISA Zambia stated that the media was an important component of democracy saying that in all democracies the media provided a counter check to various institutions including government.
The Bill does not directly mention the media or advocacy organizations. Nor does it protect them from possible prosecution under the laws such as those of libel, defamation and official secrecy, for receiving, possession and publishing information received from Whistleblowers who choose to whistleblower to such entities, rather than state investigative wings for fear of recrimination. Similarly such a whistleblower is not legally protected as he/she is exposed to other laws.
He said that the idea of the law was good but that concerns on the media needed to be examined and the scope of the draft widened to take them into account.
BACKGROUND
Whistleblowing has existed in Zambia in various forms, but without legal protection. The colonial government existed and survived on “informants” or “informers” who provided information to various wings of government. Police and government intelligence system, were the beneficiaries of this information channel. The used such information to clamp down on so called “subversives” who actually were freedom fighters.

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