Post demise blamed on shareholders

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 10:20:30 +0000

By CHINTU MALAMBO

 STATE House has nothing to do with the winding up of the Post Newspaper as we were appointed by the court, operations and assets recoveries manager, Robert Chabinga has charged.

Mr Chabinga said they tried to resuscitate the company but the main shareholders preferred to treat the liquidation as political conjecture.

He said the main shareholders and directors concentrated on promoting falsehood on social media reports on the winding up rather than addressing the real commercial issues which were before the court.

“The main shareholders and former directors preferred to treat this winding up transaction as a political conjecture rather than a cogent commercial transaction in which commercial solutions would have been pursued.

“I and the appointed liquidator Mr Lewis Mosho were accused of being agents of State House when in fact not. State House has nothing to do with our operations, it is purely a court process,” Mr Chabinga said.

Speaking during a press briefing held in Lusaka yesterday, Mr Chabinga said the office of the liquidator faced a number of challenges throughout the liquidation process some of which included frustration from the main shareholders of the company in liquidation.

Mr Chabinga said his office tried to find options to rescue the company so that it could be turned into a going concern to pay off all the debts and handed back to the shareholders but that the directors of the Post concealed company records that could have assisted to develop commercial options for the company.

Mr Chabinga claimed no person challenged the winding up proceedings in court and that one of the shareholders concentrated only on attacking the appointed liquidator without filing any opposition to the winding up proceedings.

He further said after selling off available assets, secured creditors, employees and Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) will be the first to be paid.

He said the Post liquidation was the most difficult one with very little money involved such that they had to break the safe to recover the little information obtained.

Mr Chabinga said the company fell terminally ill so that it was difficult to rescue or rehabilitate it in any way.

By a judgement of January 10,  2018, the Post Newspaper Limited was finally closed and wound up for failure to pay its debts as they fell due with no possibility of being rescued or rehabilitated.