STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA Technology. ZUBID’s argument was that the IBA is a regulator and could not combine its role with that of being a fund manager and let alone a funder of ZNBC’s public mandate as this would be a recipe for conflict of interest.8 What was revealing during the appearance before the Parliamentary Committee by various representatives is that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services and the IBA as well as the Director General of ZNBC were in total agreement with the change in respect of the modality of collecting TV levy, while the ZNBC staff was not, hence the ZUBID stance. It was for this reason that the MIBS Permanent Secretary, Mr Godfrey Malama justified the need to change the business model for the ZNBC to ensure that the Corporation concentrated on its core mandate of being a public service broadcaster. He was of the view that IBA licensees were better placed to manage the task of collecting levies, just as the ZNBC Director General, Mr Richard Mwanza. The IBA Director General, Ms Josephine Mapoma said that with the new arrangements of collecting TV levy, the ZNBC and other public broadcasters, mainly Parliament radio and television, would benefit from the levy. An additional submission by Mr Malama before the Parliamentary Committee on Media, Information, Communications and Technology was that the new TV levy collection system could in future be subjected to a research and be modified if it proved to be ineffective. 9 This seems to imply that there was probably not sufficient research conducted prior to passing the ZNBC (Amendment) and IBA (Amendment) Bills. While the ZNBC (Amendment) Act, 2017 and the IBA (Amendment) Act, 2017 were passed by Parliament, MISA Zambia floated a policy document in which the organisation proposed a merging of aspects of the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) 2010 and the IBA, 2010 with a view to creating an independent broadcasting regulator. Both the IBA and the Law Association of Zambia are keen to introduce the change.10 8 ibid ZDM ZNBC Act amendment good - Mulenga 7 December 2017 p.3 10 MISA Zambia policy document on regulating ZNBC 28 November 2017 9 10