Ntundu’s ‘sort out The Post’ statement

Ntundu’s ‘sort out The Post’ statement
Written by Noel Sichalwe and Gillian Namungala

Opposition UPND and the ruling MMD have distanced themselves from Gwembe member of parliament Brian Ntundu’s call on the government to sort out The Post.

And MMD spokesperson Benny Tetamashimba has said the ruling party has got nothing to do with those calling on the government to sort out The Post. UPND spokesperson Charles Kakoma on Monday explained that what Ntundu said in Parliament was his personal view, which did not reflect the views of the party and its policy on media freedom.

"I would like to state that what Honourable Ntundu debated in Parliament and what he said about The Post is clearly his personal views," he said. "It did not reflect the views of the party and it is not policies the party stand on. We will continue to have our own issues but that does not justify the closure of the institution. The UPND stands on media freedom. It is very very clear.

"We support the freedom of information and freedom of the media and therefore, we will not advocate for the closure of media institutions which we feel are not covering us fairly. Of course as stakeholders, we also have the right to complain when we think that UPND is not fairly covered, but that is not justifying the closure of any media institution, including The Post because they have not covered us the way we wanted. It is also not our policy as a party, for example, that journalists that reported the way they reported should be arrested. I don't think that is the way even Parliament should agree to move a motion to start arresting journalists who report things that are not likeable to politicians."

Ntundu last week asked the MMD government to seriously sort out The Post now that the elections were over, describing the newspaper as stinking.

Contributing to the motion to adopt the report by the committee on information and broadcasting services, which was tabled before Parliament, Ntundu said now that MMD had won the presidential election, it should deal with The Post for its unfair coverage towards President Rupiah Banda.

Ntundu said it would be useless for the government to fail to deal with The Post when during the run-up to the just-ended election, the newspaper was insulting their candidate on a daily basis.

However, Speaker of the National Assembly Amusaa Mwanamwambwa intervened and asked Ntundu to withdraw the word 'stinking'.

Ntundu then withdrew the word 'stinking' and described the newspaper as unprofessional.

And Tetamashimba said President Banda had nothing to do with people that were calling on him to deal with his critics.

"Let's give President Banda a chance to govern this country. I can tell you that he will not go back to attend to those who were against him," Tetamashimba said. "I can't start condemning The Post for what you were writing. Fred [M'membe] has been my friend for a long time."

Asked to explain why the MMD had not denied the reported electoral malpractices prior to last month's presidential election, Tetamashimba said the people of Zambia would judge whether The Post was wrong or right.

"The MMD has nothing to do with what The Post was writing, but we read everything. It's up to the people of Zambia to judge," Tetamashimba said. "All I can say is that there is need for a private media in the country to help provide checks and balances."

Meanwhile, Kakoma said the Patriotic Front (PF) would never expand its political base to other regions as long as long as it continued to view non-Bemba speaking people as tribalists.

Kakoma was commenting on remarks by PF Roan member of parliament Chishimba Kambwili who said that UPND did not enter into a pact with PF because it was tribal. He said it was tragic for the PF to always look at things through tribal spectacles.

Kakoma said as long as PF focused on having a Bemba president, it would continue failing to penetrate other regions because such areas would be apprehensive to their motive.

Kakoma said the PF's hegemonic view that tended to belittle other political parties and non-Bemba speaking regions was hurting the feelings of other people and would make it difficult for them to be accepted nationwide.