NRPUP RESPONSE TO NEWS DIGGERS: PRESIDENT MUNDUBILE’S PROMISES ARE NOT LIES. THEY ARE A CHOICE THE UPND HAVE REFUSED TO MAKE.

NRPUP RESPONSE TO NEWS DIGGERS: PRESIDENT MUNDUBILE’S PROMISES ARE NOT LIES. THEY ARE A CHOICE THE UPND HAVE REFUSED TO MAKE.

News Diggers wants Zambians to believe that free education, an expanded student loans system and debt cancellation for graduates are fantasy. They are not. They are policy choices that other countries, some far poorer than Zambia in natural resources, have already made work.

Lets start with the facts. Zambia is one of the most resource-rich countries on the continent, sitting on some of the largest copper reserves in the world, alongside cobalt, manganese, gemstones and vast agricultural potential. A country this endowed should never be told that investing properly in its young people is impossible. The question was never whether Zambia can afford to educate its children. The question is whether its government has chosen to.

On bursaries for all students, this is not a radical idea. It is a return to a system Zambia itself has run before, and one many countries still run today, funded through a combination of government allocation, mining revenue, and structured partnerships with financial institutions and development partners. It requires political will and honest budgeting, not a miracle.

On expanding the Higher Education Loans Board, this is standard public finance. Governments the world over partner with banks and financial institutions to expand access to credit for public programmes, whether housing, agriculture or education. Bringing banks and the financial sector on board to strengthen HELB’s lending capacity is not fantasy, it is exactly how loan boards function successfully elsewhere. It only requires the right structuring and government guarantees, both squarely within a government’s power to provide.

On cancelling student debt, News Diggers acts as though this idea was invented yesterday. It was not. Western economies, including the United States, have actively pursued large-scale student debt cancellation and relief programmes in recent years, recognising that graduates crushed by debt before they even start working are a drag on the whole economy, not an asset to it. If wealthier nations can debate and pursue debt relief for their graduates, there is no serious reason Zambia cannot pursue the same for a much smaller population, especially given the country’s mineral wealth

None of what President Mundubile is promising is generosity dressed as lies as ignorantly reported by News Diggers. It is policy ambition dressed down as impossible, by a media house that has decided its job is no longer to inform Zambians but to protect a government from scrutiny.

This is no longer a case of a newspaper simply being critical. News Diggers has abandoned every basic principle of journalism, objectivity, balance and fairness, in favour of becoming a mouthpiece for the UPND.

Every Zambian watching their coverage can see it plainly. A media house that once prided itself on holding power to account has been captured by the very system it was meant to scrutinise, and now functions as an extension of UPND propaganda rather than an independent press. No serious Zambian should continue to treat their reporting on this campaign as objective journalism. It is not. It is propaganda wearing a press badge, and it deserves to be called exactly that.

Thompson K Luzendi
NRPUP and Tonse Alliance Member.