The Sunday News
From Nduduzo Tshuma in Equatorial Guinea
PRESIDENT Mugabe does not owe Ray Kaukonde any money contrary to reports by privately owned NewsDay that he owes the sacked Mashonaland East $30 million, Presidential spokesperson Mr George Charamba said yesterday.
The newspaper last week quoted a faceless Politburo member claiming that the President had told them in a meeting two weeks ago that he owed Kaukonde $30 million and anticipated a lawsuit.
However, addressing journalists soon after President Mugabe landed in Equatorial Guinea for a two-day working consultative visit, Presidential spokesperson Mr Charamba said: “I can confirm to the nation that the President does not borrow and therefore cannot owe. He does not borrow from a private citizen and therefore cannot owe. If he has to borrow, he does it with the right institutions namely banks.
“It is therefore inconceivable for the President to be associated with such a transaction involving a private citizen. Whether in his private or official capacity, he doesn’t have such a relationship and anyone making such allegations is attacking the person of the President as well as the dignity of his office”.
Added Mr Charamba: “There is a way in which these allegations traduce the office of the President and for me that can only come from a certain type of journalism I’ve termed ill-will journalism which is really animated with unmitigated malice.”
He said the story was also an insult because it overlooked the fact that the President was a successful farmer who has been delivering tonnes and tonnes of maize, wheat, soya as well as mega litres of milk in its processed form to Zimbabweans.
“In other words, the first family is in business and to try to imply that they are hard up is really to demean the first family. We have been observing a trend in the private media where there is a malicious targeting of the First Family. It is not erratic, it is actually systemic and sustained,” said Mr Charamba.
“Just when we were about to leave for this trip, there was a story of some company which has invested in a concern which does dairy products, I think it’s Dendairy, and then the headline was ‘company invests to challenge Mugabe in the dairy industry’. Right now we have the first family in the dairy industry, we have Dairibord in the dairy industry and many other little players. How does a foreign direct investment into a Zimbabwean company necessarily link up with the President? You just can’t see the link and you can read this as real ill will against the First Family. I think there is a key difference between holding politicians to account and holding them up for ridicule.
“There is a vast difference. Holding politicians up for account is a key component of democracy and is permissible in a democracy but simply attacking the politicians gratuitously to satisfy your hatred
of a person cannot have any dignity let alone protection in the law of the land. If anything, it invites a very strong response and there is no way we can ever imagine in the media that a strong press is founded on ill will, it can’t.”
Mr Charamba said the government was in the process of working on the legal regime for the media, “against the background of all the inquiries we have done and the investments which are taking place in
the broadcasting industry”.
“One key law which has come up for discussion is one relating to criminal defamation and the general argument has been to say this is a left over from the Rhodesian era and for that reason it sits ill on a
new dispensation of Independence but what has never been interrogated is whether the behaviour of the media is not the kind of behaviour which is inviting that kind of strong legislative response,” said Mr
Charamba.
“And from what I’ve been seeing of late, it is clear that there is a way in which the media is accosting legislators and members of the executive to give a very robust response to unprofessional media
conduct. It therefore becomes difficult for the ministry to persuade other sister departments to scrap off the law against this conduct because it’s a conduct that invites a stronger legislative response.”
Explaining the delay in making a statement on the matter, Mr Charamba said he needed to first consult the President as the story touched on the personal life of the Head of State.
“The President has not pronounced himself on the matter, I consulted with him and I’m speaking as a press secretary. I consulted with him, not that it was necessary but just to fulfil protocol to the extent
that this was a matter which was personal to the life of the President,” he said.
“Generally my approach is that on official issues, governmental issues, I just go by broad policy but if there is an allegation that touches on the President’s personal life, I’m very cautious which is
why you noticed I was not in a hurry to jump into the story, I just wanted to make sure that when I pronounce myself on that matter on his behalf, my position is sufficiently canvassed.”
After News Day published the story, Zanu PF Politburo members Cdes Simon Khaya Moyo secretary for information and publicity, Saviour Kasukuwere secretary for Commissariat, Joshua Malinga secretary for
the disabled and secretary for science and technology Professor Jonathan Moyo lined up to dismiss the article as a fabrication driven by malicious intent.
