By GLADWELL NGOMA-

According to Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of the United Nations of December 10, 1948, every person is entitled to all human rights and freedoms without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status.
However, the realization and enjoyment of the other human rights and freedoms, such as health, education, employment, environmental protection, clean and safe water and freedom of movement inherently depend on the availability of information to the public.
It is against this background that over 100 countries around the world have implemented some form of Access to Information (ATI) legislation, also known as Freedom of Information (FOI).
This is according to the Centre for Law and Democracy, an international Access to Information Advocacy Group based in Canada.
However, other countries have continued struggling with their efforts in that direction.
A legal expert in Access to Information and Freedom of Expression, and representative of the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) Michelle Mwiinga, defines ATI as a law which allows public access to information held by government and public bodies, which is in the interest of the public, which she says should be enshrined in the country’s Constitution if this right is to be guaranteed.
Zambia’s struggle for ATI has generally been associated to 2001/2002, which marked the attempt to enact the Bill into law.
However, the real truth is that this struggle started as far back as 1992 when the country saw the hosting of a consultative national seminar on democracy and media, dubbed the way forward, between October 2 and 4, as the nation had reverted to a multiparty system of governance.
Out of this seminar, the Media Reform Committee (MRC) was created.
The committee did not only make recommendations for the enactment of FOI law, now called the ATI law, but also campaigned vigorously to attract Government attention as well as other stakeholders.
“In response to this particular campaign which was mounted by the media fraternity, the Government in February 2001, responded by preparing a draft Freedom of Information Bill, and this particular
Bill was published in the press and stakeholders were invited to input in this particular process,” former National Assembly Speaker Patrick Matibini said.
After the media community, with support from stakeholders like the Zambia Independent Media Association, forerunner to the now Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), galvanized itself into action by publishing its draft of FOI Bill in the Government Gazette on October 18, 2002.
However, efforts to have the FOI presented to Parliament by opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) were thwarted by a technicality.
“A technicality that emerged was that any Bill which had financial implications required the consent of the government for it to be presented in the National Assembly, which was not granted,” Dr Matibini said.
Interestingly, the Government gazetted and published its own version of FOI, which was presented for first reading on November 22, 2002, by the Information and Broadcasting Services minister.
“It was a very momentous occasion; the debate of the Bill was very lively, and we were very hopeful that eventually, we will have on our statute books Freedom of Information legislation. But in a very surprising and unexpected turn of events, on December 18, 2002, the government of the day, the government of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), through the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, decided to withdraw the Bill. And that Bill, since then, has not seen the light of the day as we speak now,” Dr Matibini said.
With continued study and analysis of turn of events in Zambia’s efforts to enact the ATI law, a researcher and senior lecturer at the University of Zambia (UNZA) Sam Phiri, attributes the unfruitfulness in efforts to enact ATI to misconception of fight for ATI as law for media practitioners as well as lack of genuine political will by powers that be and peoples’ representatives.
“Roughly, all shades of politicians have ostensibly agreed that the law is a prerequisite to a democratic dispensation. The problem is with the ‘poverty’ of political will that has accompanied and enveloped all previous attempts at enacting the ATI law. This is mainly due to the tradition of secrecy and the powerful presidentialism that Zambia has nurtured since independence,” Dr Phiri says.
He says this has continued raising questions when discussing the structures, functions, degree, scope, ease, convenience, efficacy and utility of the ATI, hence hesitation to enact the law.
“Ultimately, in Zambia, the impellent force within government for the ATI law has rightly or wrongly been located in the Ministry of Information and Media. Furthermore, this ‘location’ is dramatized by the fact that the fight for greater access to public information in Zambia has been led by media advocacy groups, such as the Media
Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and its associates,” he says.
Dr Phiri says because of this, Zambians have come to view the ATI as mainly the concern of the information and communication industries and branches of society.
The bottom line is that throughout the presidencies of Frederick Chiluba, Levy Mwanawasa, Rupiah Banda, Michael Sata, Guy Scott and Edgar Lungu, Zambia has witnessed what Dr Matibini would refer to as ‘a variety of contradictory, oblique and even comical explanations over the ATI law process.
But President Hakainde Hichilema seems to have sparkled new hope in the hearts of many Zambians towards the enactment of the ATI law.
Mr Hichilema did not only commit to giving Zambians an ATI law when the United Party for National Development (UPND) was in opposition, but he has kept reaffirming his Government’s commitment towards the same after assuming office as Zambia’s seventh President.
Beyond promising to create a conducive work environment for media practitioners, Mr Hichilema expressed commitment to enacting the ATI law in his 2021 World Press Freedom Day message to media practitioners in Zambia.
“We know that media practitioners have been abused in the past, harassed by political party cadres/thugs. This will be a thing of the past as we move to change government on the 12th August this year (2021). The Access to Information Bill will be actualized. The long awaited Access to Information Bill will be actualized,” Mr Hichilema said.
The official opening of the First Session of the 13th National Assembly on September 10, 2021, was another platform through which Mr Hichilema reaffirmed the commitment to enact the ATI law as Zambia’s seventh President.
“To further improve the governance environment, we will enhance media freedom and access to information by facilitating the establishment of a media self-regulatory framework and enacting legislation on access to information,” President Hichilema said.
During the 2022 commemoration of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, Information and Media Minister Chushi Kasanda echoed Government’s commitment to enacting the ATI law.
“The enactment of the Access to Information bill remains a key priority also on the media transformational agenda,” said Ms Kasanda who is also chief Government spokesperson.
While various stakeholders in Zambia and globally await to see the fruition of the continued ATI pronouncements by the Government, Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) Executive Director Maurice Nyambe challenges Government to make the enactment of ATI law one of the long lasting legacies.
“As a matter of fact, we would like to challenge the UPND administration; let them make the enactment of ATI one of their lasting legacies and one of the things that citizens are going to remember them for because this is a battle that has been going on for a long time,” Mr Nyambe said.
Healing World International Ministries Pastor Moses Chiluba is confident that President Hichilema will make history over the long awaited ATI law although he acknowledges that doing so is not an easy decision.
“The fear for any president to assent to this Access to Information Act is that there will be so much transparency and people will be caught and implicated because where there is access to information, nothing will remain hidden.
It is not an easy thing and I trust that President Hichilema will make history by guaranteeing the nation to move towards access to information,” Pastor Chiluba said.
The performance of the UPND Government under President Hichilema in less than 10 months in office on some key pressing issues is a source of confidence for some stakeholders, that the country will in no time be given a good ATI law.
Among the key issues which are notable among the fulfilled promises include the creation of a conducive environment for media practitioners as attested by Media Liaison Committee (MLC), curbing of cadrism and thuggery in markets and bus stations as noted by Focus Development Foundation in Mufumbwe district, and the swift and remarkable implementation of the long awaited decentralization agenda through the increase of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) from K1.6 million to K25.7 million per constituency. – ZANIS.