STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA Mr. Kasolo stated that the bill will be presented to parliament where various stakeholders will be given an opportunity to scrutinize the content and make submissions. The Permanent Secretary said government means well, and therefore there is no need for citizens to cast doubt on the state because the law will benefit them. It has been argued that stakeholders are casting doubts on the authenticity of the content of the draft bill owing to the fact that there has been a lot of back and forth pronouncements on the bill. For example, on 7th February, the Lusaka Times online Publication carried a headline, “Access To Information Bill Will Not Be Presented In The Next Sitting Of Parliament” and attributed the statement to Information and Broadcasting Permanent Secretary Chanda Kasolo saying that the Access to Information Bill will not be presented in the next sitting of Parliament which opens on Tuesday 14th February, 2019. His justification for the move was that government wanted to ensure that caution is taken especially on security matters before the bill is enacted into law. Mr. Kasolo added that the bill will adequately be prepared so that there are no lacunas. The PS’s statement came before the bill was presented to cabinet and stakeholders cast doubt on the process owing to the flip-flopping stance taken by government. 4.1.3 Regulation of ZNBC There has been calls for the regulation of the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) by merging the ZNBC Amendment Act 2010 and IBA Act of 2010 to bring into existence an independent Broadcasting Regulator. It has been argued that the two pieces of legislation when merged will ensure that the broadcasting industry has an independent regulatory body. The calls to merge the two Acts were pioneered by MISA Zambia in 2017 after launching a policy document on the possibilities of having the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) regulated by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA). In line with this move, government through the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting services announced that it had come up with a law that will enable the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) to scrutinise the Zambia National Broadcasting 12