Newly appointed Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Nick Mangwana has promised to unblock all the people he had blocked on his personal social media accounts in order to promote openness. Mangwana who took over from the long-serving George Charamba said that he would unblock people because his appointment called for engagement with people. Writing on Twitter, Mangwana said,
As a public employee, I am going to unblock most of the people that I had been blocked in my previous role. I hope we can all focus on issues about our country & avoid personal attacks & inappropriate language. Let’s all start on a clean slate as I am now wearing a different hat.
Earlier this year, a federal judge in the United States ruled that it is unconstitutional for US President Donald Trump to block critics on his Twitter feed following a lawsuit by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, as well as seven other plaintiffs who had been blocked on Twitter by Trump.
With Mangwana coming on board, his ministry has also taken steps to be more open and has created a Twitter account. Announcing the new account, the ministry said,
This is the official Ministry for Information, Media & Broadcasting Services Twitter. We will be giving updates & responding to pertinent quiries. Our responses may not be in real-time as we may need to gather info from relevant ministries but we will respond at some point. Thank you.
Source: Pindula
