Maravi

LETTERS - VJ, State Media and Public Funds

Investigate VJ saga
By Concerned citizen
Monday April 16, 2007 [04:00]

The VJ-DRC saga cannot pass without a comment owing to the fact that most of the commentaries seem to lean heavily against VJ. But I have a different perception about the whole matter as pointed out in your edition of April 13, 2007 why the Speaker of the National Assembly tried in vain to water down the debate in the house and also why the two state sponsored media institutions tried to suppress the truth.

If VJ was alone in this battle, the mentioned characters above would have taken a neutral position but since they knew what was at stake for their party MMD, and miscalculated the capabilities of The Post to access such inform from a foreign land and by them frustrating the process started by The Post by way of curtailing debate and fabrication of a doctored transcript, they thought it was home and dry.

The point I am trying to drive home is that VJ’s mission to DRC was a joint one between State House and VJ and all what VJ said is what his boss told him to go and say.

VJ can not have made a mistake being the most experienced person and that’s why he was picked. The press briefings he was holding could have been part of his terms of reference as an envoy. So the assertion by Teta that the envoy bla bla is baseless because if the MMD government is sincere about the whole issue why can they also reproduce the whole or part of the script which the President gave to VJ to go and present to his counterpart so that the nation knows the truth? VJ is prone in this whole game.

There is a lot behind the whole issue because of the corruption part of it which ideally does not concern VJ as an individual but the whole MMD government including the President himself and the fight against corruption management. Who knew that we the tax payers were serving the debt which was accrued dubiously by Mwanawasa and his fellow MMD?

The Post, please dig deeper and find out why VJ was using government machinery to sway the truth and the President pretends as if he was not aware. He picks out VJ alone, leaving the other players such as the Speaker of the National Assembly and the editors of the two disgraced media houses for their roles in misleading the nation




http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=25273

Public media heads
By Gershom
Monday April 16, 2007 [04:00]

It is high time the state media redeemed itself otherwise it risks rendering itself irrelevant in obtaining socio-economic milieu of our country. It should be a shame that President Mwanawasa always refers to The Post to even take some decisions. He rarely, if at all, mentions the state media in any context.

The way in which the Mwaanga-gate scandal was handled by state media has left a moral vacuum among men and women at the Zambia Daily Mail, and the Times of Zambia. Unfortunately, that moral vacuum even extends to parliament bringing in the right honourable Speaker, Amusaa Mwanamwambwa, a former information minister himself.

It is clear from the Mwaanga-gate, and what I know myself having experienced it, how state media is manipulated by the likes of VJ by using some feckless journalists who easily fall prey to their manipulative tactics. Those that attempt to stand firm are shunted out. The case over Chiluba's third term attempt speaks for itself.

It is high time journalists at the public media institutions grew a stiff spine to withstand the idiocy, nay lunancy, exhibited by high handed politicians who, in effect, are just liars who live by misleading people.
If anything, Mwanawasa should go even further by removing public media heads for letting the nation down in trying to defend the indefensible.



http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=25275

Misuse of public funds
By Musolo Mwana
Monday April 16, 2007 [04:00]

I wish to highly commend the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament in the handling of information from various ministries and I wish that the appointing authority will take a leaf from these gallant men and women and clean the rot in the ministries.

Hats off too to the Auditor General for exposing these scams! By the way, where are the internal audit units in the ministries?

Labels: GOVERNANCE, MEDIA, VERNON MWAANGA

posted by MrK @ 3:45 AM