Attending to Hichilema’s Tattered Public Image; Cornelius Mweetwa Appoints new Media Team- Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba

Attending to Hichilema’s Tattered Public Image; Cornelius Mweetwa Appoints new Media Team.

Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba Wrote;

From day one, President Hakainde Hichilema had Brenthurst Foundation located at the heart of power, at State House to guide and advise him.

Things started going bad quickly.

He hired the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and located it at both State House and Ministry of Finance.

Nothing worked, nothing changed.

President Hichilema resorted to repressive methods. He used the police to frequently initimidate, harrass, arrest and punish critics and members of the Opposition.

Nothing worked, things got worse.

President Hichilema reprised archaic and repressive laws such as the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act, Sedition, Criminal Defamation.

Nothing worked, his image continued to lay in tatters.

President Hichilema recently quietly appointed Whitney Mulobela, as State House Special Communications Strategist, to help the failings of the Clayson Hamasaka team with strategy.

Mulobela a veteran, astute journalist and junior lawyer was seen engaging and cultivating stake holders in the media.

Nothing worked, nothing changed.

They brought Kenyan PR experts. Government hired the Gina Din Corporate Communications (GDCC), a professional communications consulting firm. Set up by Gina Din Kariuki in October 1997, the company is recognised as the leading integrated public relations firm in the East African region.

Gina Din-Kariuki travelled to Zambia and conducted PR master classes for President Hichilema, State House, Ministers and Permanent Secretaries.

Nothing worked, nothing changed.

Government recently appointed Principal Public Relations Officers in all the 25 Ministries and 10 Provincial Administration.

The new officers were given elevated rank.

Strangely these institutions already had new Public Relations Officers! Quite a duplication.

However, bothing is working, nothing  changed.

Desperate neasures calls for desperate avtion. They recently hired Prophet Seer 1 and put him on a dedicated stipend to counter negative narrative on social-media.

Failed project.

Nothing worked, nothing changed.

Now they have appointed Mark Simuuwe, Situla Sikwiindi and Oliver Shalala giving them media roles.

Minister of Information and Media, who is also UPND Spokesperson, Cornelius Mweetwa has appointed Mark Simuuwe as UPND Media Director replacing Ruth Dante( I hope they have finally rewarded her with a job).

At my last appearance on Prime Tv with Mark Simuuwe, I told him that his Masters must give him a substantial position as his position of a “consultant” was ridiculous.

No Consultant speaks for the organisation that they are consulting for. The position of a consultant is that of an outsider looking in.

Therefore Simuuwe couldn’t be an authority or taken seriously on topical issues he took as he trekked from one radio/tv station to another in his media campaigns to defend the failures of UPND Government.

Mweetwa has also appointed long-time party activist Sikwindi Situla as Deputy Media Director while media blogger, Oliver Shalala, has been appointed as a UPND Consultant taking up the ineffective role previously occupied by Simuuwe.

Shalala is recently remembered for his highly publicised work to get or speak for a contract for the lucrative Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriageway for Italian-Zambian businessman, Diego Cassili’s Graduare Property Development Limited and Velos Construction.

Cassili lost that fight to a chinese consortium led by Avic construction.

Shalala was later seen as PR officer battling the high stake game of Mwembeshi Resources, a new mine given a licence to dig and operate a copper mine in the delicate Lower Zambezi National Park.

In August 2023, the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) cancelled the decision to allow Mwembeshi Resources Limited operate a large-scale open pit copper mining project in Lower Zambezi National Park.

Clearly, the UPND Media remains in “comatose” using the words of Laura Miti, the UPND and President Hakainde Hichilema beloved social-media defender.

Laura put squarely the blame on President Hichilema for failing to put up a solid and effective media team.

She recently wrote;

“If the President resolutely refuses to put together a PR team, that can easily show the stories that Emmanuel Mwamba expertly (grant that to him) puts together, to be mostly lies or spin, then he cannot be excused for unpresidentially doing what should be left to his communication team.”

“The whole government being defeated in the PR game because the Kateks refuses to do the right, if difficult, thing. Refuses to reassign, not even fire,those who have failed in a fundamental task.”

“The problem is not social media, Sir! It’s your
comatose communication function”.

CONCLUSION

The fastest way for President Hichilema to regain or rescue his tattered public image is to deliver on his own campaign promises, attend to the cost-of-living crisis, stop tribal appointments, stop corruption, stop persecuting political opponents, stop violating human rights and respect the Constitution, respect the seperation of powers and honour the independence of democratic institutions.

There is no PR than the PR narrative soeaking to delivery.