Veep warns Govt ‘moles’

VICE-PRESIDENT George Kunda has warned that civil servants who leak confidential Government information will not be protected. Mr Kunda was speaking when winding up debate of expenditure of Cabinet Office. He said under no circumstances were leakages justifiable. “It depends on the type of information leaked, but some of the information, especially things to do with the security of the nation, is a serious offence,” he said. Mr Kunda said most of the people who leaked information did it for their own gain and to achieve an agenda. “It is unfortunate that these same whistle blowers only leak information that people want to hear and they suppress the explanation. These types of whistle blowers will not be protected,” he said.

Source Daily Mail 25-02-09

Whistle blowing is always a difficult topic of discussion. For instance when the current British Prime Minister was in opposition, he thrived on using leaked documents to embarrass the government of John Major. There is even video footage of him justifying the leaks. However, as PM he has a zero tolerance against whistle blowing.

I am sure the VP is using a lesson learnt from the Gordon Brown School of politics by trying to clamp down on whistle blowing. However the situation in Zambia is different. While the UK has some of the best political journalists capable of digging and investigating stories, Zambia has a heavy reliance on the POST. The other papers are basically GRZ/MMD propaganda tools. As government rarely volunteers to release bad news, the POST has to rely on sources in high places to obtain some of these stories

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