Speaker of the National Assembly Amussa Mwanamwambwa today ordered a stop to the continued skirmishes between Members of Parliament and the media fraternity.
Mr. Mwanamwambwa charged that MPs and the media should stop provoking each other on
matters of national interests.
He warned that the recent continued skirmishes between the MPs and the media if not
checked will not end peacefully.
“Arising from the symbiotic relations between the media, MPs and members of the
press I call for the immediate stop of these continued skirmishes. When such a thing
continues there will be no winner or loser,” he said.
Mr. Mwanamwambwa was making a ruling on a point of order raised by Namwala UPND MP
Major Richard Chizyuka regarding the editorial comment by the Post Newspaper, which
focussed on MPs.
Major Chizyuka wanted to know whether the Editorial comment in the Saturday,
February 24 issue of the Post Newspaper was in order to attack the legislators and
cast aspersions on the integrity of the august House.
The Speaker stressed that Zambia is governed under a number of laws which have been
passed in the past and now designed to ensure that citizens are given sufficient
room to live and operate without fear of intimidation from any quarter.
He said equally, the House was guaranteed with the freedom of speech from the
Republican Constitution.
“This specific article gave birth to the Act of Parliament Cap 12 of the powers and
privileges of MP’s to ensure that what they say inside the House is protected,” he
said.
“Other laws protect the freedom of speech and other freedoms that protect persons
who are outside the house.”
Mr. Mwanawmambwa however stressed that the media should not consider themselves to
be enjoying a field day by issuing scathing attacks on MPs in the name of freedom of
speech.
He said that the media has to be objective when talking about issues regarding
parliamentary debates because it equally needs to make money from the same
proceedings.
The Speaker said the media and Newspaper publications in particular, make more sales
when parliament was sitting because the public was eager to know about the
proceedings in the House.
He urged members of parliament and the media not merely to observe truce but to make
an end to the hostility which, he said, was not helpful to the nation.
ZANIS
The speaker is right that the public is eager to know what is happening in parliament. Infact that interest is healthy and should be nurtured by the media especially if our parliament seems to be made up of people ever so willing to starve the poor Zambians in order to line their pockets with pub money. The media has informed us about, Zambia reaching the HIPC completion point and billions of debt been written off. I think its only proper that the media tells us what our leaders intend to do with the monies that would been released from the debt cancellation. Why are the MPs worried if what they are doing is in the inetest of the nation. People need to know.