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Herald ordered to retract false Zesa story on Hon. Mangoma
Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC-T)
October
25, 2013
Hon. Elton Mangoma,
the MDC Deputy Treasurer General and former Minister of Energy and
Power Development through his lawyers has ordered the Herald to
make a retraction to a false story it published on Thursday.
The Herald,
in this Thursday's article; “Plot to kill Zesa flops”,
an unnamed reporter falsely claimed that former Energy Minister,
Hon. Mangoma wanted to unbundle the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply
Authority (ZESA) and put the power sector into the hands of unknown
western investors.
Through his
lawyers, Mupanga Bhatasara Attorneys, Hon. Mangoma said, although
in principle he was not against freedom of expression and fair comment,
the Herald article; “takes the cup of gutter journalism”.
“These
comments seem designed to damage the reputation of our client in
the public eye and create public opprobrium towards said client,”
a letter written to the Herald’s Editor in Chief by the lawyers
reads.
“The comments
contained in the said article by an unnamed and cowardly faceless
reporter were recklessly predicated on sensationalism with a complete
disregard to the truth. The story gives an impression of a clumsy
hatchet job on the character of an outstanding public servant who
is on record for having solved the perennial fuel crisis and had
gone on to work tirelessly day and night (emphasis deliberate) to
lessen the electricity shortages,” the letter reads.
The lawyers
say they have every intention of protecting their client’s
interests against the Herald in the High Court.
“Accordingly
we demand that you do the following:
- Remove in
their entirety the articles on your website which are defamatory
to prevent continued harm to our client.
- Issue an
apology and cause such apology to be published in each of the
platforms which have given or could give reason for our complaint,”
the lawyers wrote.
They said they
had evidence to prove that the story in the Herald contains sensational,
untrue and highly defamatory comments towards Hon. Mangoma, most
of which contain malicious falsehoods.
“We have
included a sample of the paragraphs we deem to be defamatory for
now as we continue to search in the cesspool of gutter journalism
typified by this article. We hasten to state that we are in principle
not against freedom of expression and fair comment but this takes
the cup of gutter journalism,” the letter reads.
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