BY OLIVER SAMBOKO
THE Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) has charged that suspected UPND members have created multiple duplicate Facebook pages for PeP and Sean Tembo aimed at discrediting him.
PeP has consequently distanced itself from malicious and racist posts which Information minister, Chushi Kasanda, was condemning the party for.
In a statement. Mr Tembo said the party was being accused of racist slur over propaganda items doctored by people he accused of being close to the ruling party.
PeP claimed the minister issued a statement barely 15 minutes after the fake post purporting to be from Mr Tembo was posted and condemning the fake post.
He said given the speed with which the Minister responded to the fake post, PeP suspected that the UPND was working in tandem with the unscrupulous people that made fake Facebook posts in the party’s name with the aim of putting its name into disrepute in the eyes of the public.
“If this is the case, then it is extremely regrettable and we wish to call upon the Minister to desist from such underhand behavior,” he said.
He said this is a matter that had not arisen today, and the party had been complaining about it for the past three months or so.
Mr Tembo said to an average person, it was difficult to tell the difference between the fake pages and the official party page, unless they checked the number of followers.
He said most of the fake pages had less than 500 followers whereas the official party page had more than 100,000 followers.
Mr Tembo advised the general public to always counter-check the number of followers on the Sean Tembo page that they are browsing in order to confirm that it is the official page.
“It is unfortunate that according to Facebook rules, a name cannot be patented, hence we are unable to take action against those who have created duplicate pages in our name. Additionally, our requests to have our page verified by Facebook have not been successful due to the existence of these duplicate fake pages with a similar name,’’ the statement read.
Mr Tembo denied claims by Ms Kasanda that he had issued racist remarks targeted at Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) Coordinator Gabriel Pollen.
He said in regard to Friday’s post about the DMMU Coordinator, the PeP noted that a paraphrased and offensive version of the post was circulated by the unscrupulous individuals about 30 minutes after the official post was made.
Ms Kasanda was urged to always verify her information before rushing to the media to make unwarranted accusations against opposition leaders.
“We wish to put it on record that at no time did we make any racist remarks. In line with our mandate and duty as an opposition political party in Zambia, we merely expressed concern about the inertia by the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) to assist victims of the floods that happened in Choma about a week ago, which submerged Mbabala bridge. We were moved to comment on the poor performance by DMMU because of the many complaints that we received via Facebook messenger by the victims of the floods and the lack of assistance on the ground,” he said.
