Pilato Vs ZAM: Round 3

Sun, 04 Dec 2016 10:23:53 +0000

By David Julian Wightman

Chama Fumba AKA Pilato has responded to complaints by the Zambia Association of Musicians that he has been making “unwarranted attacks” on ZAM and its executive.

Fumba initially made lengthy comments on his official Pilato Facebook page to the effect that the ZAM executive was illegitimate because it had not gone to an Annual General Assembly for re-election as stated in its constitution.

“[Any] ZAM executive draws its legitimacy from the elections which must happen at the AGM. The current ZAM executive’s term ended somewhere this year. So the body that is masquerading as ZAM executive has no mandate from its membership and those dealing with it must be aware of the possible risks,” Fumba explained.

The “controversial” recording artist went on to charge that the current ZAM executive had “failed to be helpful and relevant” and vowed that the executive would be remembered “as [the] group of good men and women who destroyed a great music association.”

Speaking to Daily Nation last week, ZAM publicity secretary Mwembe Chulu complained that Fumba “has not paid membership of only K100.” He also claimed that “ZAM has resurrected and on track enjoying support from different cooperating partners. Providing audit services to ZAM on pro bon basis is CMM Partners, a renowned accounting firm. We have three legal firms working closely with us… Media365 has come on board as our communications consultants too. With the above it is clear that we now have confidence from corporate institutions.”

However, Fumba wondered why anyone would want to join ZAM. “The association is too broken and just doesn’t have a program. That’s why musicians are not attracted to joining it. And it’s dying slowly like that. People are no longer willing to join ZAM because it’s as good as not being there,” Fumba explained.

“So my intention is reorganizing it, can we bring it back, can we inspire artists to join it? How do we do that? Obviously by putting in people who can work, by voting for a team that can actually deliver and make the association attractive. We don’t want to have them collecting K100 from artists and then the story ends there. We want an association that people will be bothered to join.”

Asked by Sunday Nation why he had taken ZAM to task, Fumba explained that the executive needs to be replaced at an AGM.

“For ZAM the problems are known. There is an executive that should have been dissolved. They should have elected a new executive but they didn’t on account that they didn’t have much funds to organize the AGM, but now over time what has happened is ZAM has actually broken down. There is an office in Showgrounds which has been closed for months now, it’s only opened when there’s a funeral, when an artist dies, that’s when [that office] opens. So there’s no program whatsoever,” he explained.

“I think ZAM doesn’t have a system or structure, there are people there who masquerade as members and presidents and chairmen and everything but they don’t work as a team, they are all over the place, they have no program.”