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Professor Jonathan Moyo

Nduduzo Tshuma  Political Editor
THE NewsDay newspaper drew the ire of the government yesterday, with a minister accusing them of publishing “blatant lies” after they claimed that the Cabinet had last met on January 27 because of President Robert Mugabe’s foreign travel.The paper claimed Cabinet had “skipped nine meetings . . . as Mugabe’s foreign trips cripple government operations” in a front page story.

But investigations by The Chronicle showed that Cabinet has in fact met six times since that January 27 meeting — on February 5, February 10, February 17, February 24, March 3 and March 23. President  Mugabe will chair another Cabinet meeting today.

Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo said the NewsDay report was a mistimed April Fools joke.

The paper’s editors “foolishly thought today is 1st April when it’s 31 March,” the minister said on Twitter, adding that the paper was “too eager to entrench a lie under the cover of a Fool’s Day that never was.”

He said Cabinet had met whenever the President was available, not necessarily on Tuesdays as per tradition. For instance, Cabinet sat on Monday last week, a day before President Mugabe left for Algeria on a state visit.

NewsDay cited the source of its false story as a “Zanu-PF politburo member and top government official”. Prof Moyo said it was foolish for the newspaper to quote an alleged politburo member, if indeed he exists, on Cabinet business.

The minister blasted: “There’s no-one in Zimbabwe who’s a serious person in politics, business and media who doesn’t know                           that this is a false story because there’ve been several reports of the Cabinet meeting and making decisions since January 27.

“You can’t get a more preposterous thing than that. There’s no-one serious whether in that newsroom itself at NewsDay,                                across the media, in business, in politics, among diplomats who think that story is     true.

“This leaves us with one question. Why did they publish such a blatantly false story? Answer: Either they’ve lost their marbles or they don’t have a normal calendar. They thought that yesterday was Fools Day. But they’re the only ones with that foolish calendar.”

NewsDay, the minister said, had “done such a disservice to themselves, the profession of journalism and to the owners of their business.”

“There’s no reason why anyone should ever take such a newspaper seriously whatsoever. Perhaps that explains why they’ve been shutting down and closing their papers. If I were their owners, I would close them down because you don’t want such a useless newspaper.”

In a statement yesterday, the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Misheck Sibanda, also took a swipe at the newspaper which he accused of “concocting” a story.

“The writer of the article alleges a Zanu-PF Politburo member and top government official as his source. The writer and/or indeed, ‘the source’ as it may be, is evidently unaware of the fact that on instances when Cabinet meetings are not held on the traditional day (Tuesday) the Chairman of Cabinet His Excellency the President has often fixed alternative days in the same week, for the meetings, as has been the case a couple of occasions,” said Sibanda.

He said his office had been advising members of the alternative days for the holding of the rescheduled meetings through the public media.

“The ‘source’, and indeed, the paper, should have known this practice. In any case, unlike Parliament whose business is carried out in public, Cabinet transacts its business in private, in line with the established conventions, the world over,” said  Sibanda.

“Perhaps that explains why the paper concocted such a wild allegation. But then, at least what one should have done was to seek the view of the appropriate Offices, in the interest of ensuring fairness, balance and accuracy.”

Sibanda said the publication of such “a blatant lie” was “driven by ill will, with the intention to arouse public disaffection towards the government and its leadership.”

He called for media houses to uphold professionalism and desist from engaging in the deliberate distortion of facts.