6.9.9 Zambia After the enactment of the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) (Amendment) Act no. 17 of 2002 and the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Act no. 20 of 2002 by President Levy Mwanawasa, the focus of MISA Zambia’s campaign during this period was on the implementation of the two Acts, which became law six months after Presidential ascent. A workshop was held for parliamentarians to review the media legal reforms, part of which focused on the two project areas and the Freedom of Information Bill. The purpose of the workshop, held on 26th May 2003, was to lobby parliamentarians to ensure that they remind the government of what still needs to be done to ensure implementation of the two acts. This workshop urged the ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services to speed the implementation of the two Acts by issuing statutory instruments to operate the two Acts by July 1, 2003. This workshop was conducted in partnership with FES and was fully funded. A stakeholders’ workshop was held to nominate people to sit on the appointments committees of both the IBA and ZNBC on 20 June 2003. The names of nominees were submitted to the minister of information and were then appointed to the two ad-hoc committees charged with the responsibility of appointing board members of the two institutions. The workshop was funded by MISA. After the appointments committees of both the ZNBC and IBA were appointed by the minister, an awarene ss workshop was held for them on 29 August 2003. The objective was to sensitize them on the need to follow a public nomination process during the appointment of board members of the two institutions. By October 2003, the two committees had already began work with advertisements in the national media inviting applications for people to apply to sit on the boards. Interviews were conducted and names of successful candidates submitted to the minister so that she presents them to Parliament for ratification. The minister however has refused to take all the names to Parliament for ratification saying the categories are not representative enough. Meetings were also held with the Permanent Secretary for Information and the Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services earlier in 2003 and on 13th January 2004. During the meetings with the minister MISA Zambia discussed various concerns regarding a few provisions of the ZNBC (Amendment) Act and the IBA Act as raised by the minister as well as the implementation of the two Acts. MISA Zambia was assured that the minister was going to send the names of board members for ratification to parliament even though she was concerned about the lack of government representation on the two new boards. The minister later changed and decided that some of the names were of the same categories while other categories were not represented at all. In terms of publicity of the two Acts, this was undertaken on the MISA Zambia TV programme "Media and the Public" between 5th October 2003 and April 2004, thereby raising awareness on the implementation of the two Acts. In addition, David Simpson (deceased) Secretary of the Media Legal review Committee wrote columns on the IBA, ZNBC and FOI in the National Mirror even though this was not commissioned. MISA Annual Report (April 2003 – March 2004) 65