By Staff Reporter
LAMECK Mangani says late president Rupiah Banda handled The Post in a mature manner because he was under intense pressure from his cabinet to close the newspaper.
Mangani, who served as home affairs minister under Banda, said plans to close The Post started with the MMD government but that Rupiah refused to do so.
Featuring on Diamond TV’s COSTA programme on Sunday night, Mangani said the media should always take a neutral stance.
He said when the media takes a political stance of any sort it could derail everything.
Asked whether at some point the MMD government thought The Post was fighting it, Mangani said all the ministers felt that the newspaper was hostile.
“President Banda handled The Post in a mature manner because he was under pressure from all of us. All of us as ministers felt that The Post was extremely hostile,” he said.
When asked whether The Post was just providing checks and balances, Mangani said checks and balances could not be done without getting to the other side.
“How do you do checks and balances when sometimes you don’t even find out from me but you have got a story about me and you have not even interviewed me, you have just picked one side? RB handled that issue very well because there was pressure that The Post must be closed,” he said. “There were these bills under Zambia Revenue Authority. There were all those things but RB stood firm and said ‘under my watch no media house will be closed. They are doing their work and what we can do is that if there is something that we are not doing well we have to adjust. But I am not closing any media house’. And he kept that.”
Mangani stressed that the decision to close The Post started with the MMD but Banda refused to do so.
“Look at what happened later on with The Post, if RB was so bad compared to what happened later on! Why did the people take that decision, that decision started with us but RB refused?” said Mangani.
Ahead of the August 12, 2016 elections, president Edgar Lungu’s regime closed The Post through the ZRA.
But The Supreme Court has held that the liquidation of The Post Newspapers Limited in the manner it was done was not genuine.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we hold that the actions of the liquidator prior to and post the purported liquidation of The Post Newspapers Limited, are of no legal effect whatsoever,” the court ruled.
Chief Justice Mumba Malila and two other judges in a judgment dated February 17, 2022 held that High Court judge Sunday Nkonde relinquished his supervisory responsibility when he allowed Lewis Mosho as the provisional liquidator and five former employees of Post Newspapers Limited, including the Zambia Revenue Authority to enter into a consent order declaring the company insolvent.
The Court has since ordered that the winding up proceedings of the newspaper company be reopened before the High Court and should be presided over by a different judge.
The Chief Justice said the actions of Mosho and the purported liquidation of Post Newspapers Limited were of no legal effect and that the liquidation in the manner it was undertaken by Mosho was a faux.
On January 10, 2018, Post Newspapers Limited was crippled by the PF regime using the ZRA on reasons that it failed to honour its tax liabilities amounting to K53.8 million.
This was after five of its former employees, Abel Mboozi, Roy Habaalu, Andrew Chiwenda, Mwendalubi Mweene and Bonaventure Bwalya petitioned the newspaper company in the High Court seeking an order that it be wound up for reasons that they were not paid salaries and terminal benefits in the aggregate sum of K815,000.