In his typical unprofessional, incompetent and abusive manner, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s spokesperson George Charamba resorted to name-calling when asked by The NewsHawks how the Zimbabwe Independent’s Muckraker column published last Friday “undermined the authority of the President”.
The column led to the arrest of the newspaper’s editor Faith Zaba who will appear in court this morning at 11:15am for bail application after detention in dingy and freezing cells for two days despite that she is unwell.
Instead of providing an answer to the simple, straightforward question in a professional and civilised way, Charamba, a long-serving civil servant who engages on important issues of public interest through ghost social media accounts, exploded:
“You must be a fool to expect to hear from anyone in Govt in respect of a matter in which is either before the courts or on its way there!! Next time don’t tag me on your brainless activism masquerading as journalism!!!!! Nxa!!!!”
Charamba – who is currently conspicuous by his silence whenever Mnangagwa is under attack due to his partisan factional politics – has shown strong public hostility and anger towards The NewsHawks which has been systematically and surgically exposing corruption, looting of public resources and abuse of power through bold investigative reporting since its arrival on the media landscape five years ago.
Charamba has of late resorted to excluding The NewsHawks from important engagements like the editors’ meetings with Mnangagwa, for instance, when it has a legitimate interest in those events as a bona fide and registered media organisation.
Charamba got more desperate and abusive when he saw his unprofessional conduct and gross incompetence exposed:
“COWARDS CALLED @NewsHawksLive are frustrated I don’t waste my time on their O-Revhuru journalism!!! And that they stand uninvited to State functions. Well, they have to be bona fide journalists in the first place, these untrained and untrainable morons!!!!!.”
