Mnangagwa appoints his niece new ZBC boss

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has appointed his niece Helliate Rushwaya as new Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) board chair.

The Rushwayas, including Martin Rushwaya, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, and the controversial dodgy businesswoman Henrietta Rushwaya, are related to Mnangagwa whose government is stuffed with relatives, loyalists and cronies along patronage and ethnic lines, provoking public alarm and uproar.

The new ZBC board was announced through a statement by Acting Permanent Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Jonathan Gandari.

Other members of the board include Advocate Lewis Uriri, Chipo Nheta, Precious Charandura, Charles Munganasa, Dr Henry Mukono and Dr Nanette Silukhuni (not
Naneti Silikuni as wrongly written on the Ministry of Information statement).

The outgoing Dr Josaya Tai-led board was fired over a number of key performance, oversight and corporate governance issues at ZBC, as well as the crass and tribally divisive remarks by two female television presenters, Farai Juliet Magada and Victoria Manase.

Apart from Tai, the old board also included Thomas Bvuma, Tsitsi Dangarembizi, Heliate Rushwaya, Dorothy Mabika, Devnanda Popatla, Reverend Thompson Dube and Brian Mutangandebvu.

The ZBC presenters, Magada and Manase, were swiftly exposed for their blissful ignorance, mimicking colonial and tribal stereotypes based on lies that 19th century Ndebele State King Lobengula Khumalo sold the country for sugar to imperial Britain.

Lobengula and his regiments, the most powerful military force on the land at the material time, fought well-documented anti-colonial battles, including the legendary Last Stand, also widely known as the Shangani or Wilson Patrol on 4 December 1893.

Yet successive generations of Zimbabweans grew up on the staple diet of propaganda and lies that Lobengula sold the country for sugar.

The crude propaganda even goes on to say for a mirror!

As a result, the Information Ministry says media houses and journalists should to be adequately informed and be alive to public sensitivities of communities – not peddle falsehoods and colonial stereotypes – in their reporting.

Gandari said the media must refrain from ficticious stories and commentary which divides the nation; audiences, readers and viewers at national, community and regional levels.

He said media should uphold sacrosanct journalism ethics – including facts and truth – and the broader goal to promote national cohesion.

Newshawks