By CHILA NAMAIKO –

.Chanda

PRESIDENTIAL spokesperson Amos Chanda has formally written to Inspector General of Police Kakoma Kanganja expressing displeasure at the repeated forgery and altering of State House statements and generally other abuses through social media.
Mr Chanda told journalists at State House yesterday that a specialised team of police officers dealing with such matters had already interviewed him over the formal complaint to Mr Kanganja.
“We have been talking about the abuse of social media and the digital space and I have since formally, as I announced earlier on, written to the Inspector General of Police expressing our displeasure at the repeated forgery and altering of State House statements generally and other abuses regarding social media and other fora,” Mr Chanda said.
Transport and Communications Minister Brian Mushimba said the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) was getting involved in such investigations to deal with abusers of social media.
Mr Mushimba said Government was concerned over the forgery and altering of State House statements, which was a pure act of abuse, especially that the misleading information was delivered to the public.
He assured that ZICTA was doing its best to bring to book all culprits and warned that those found wanting would face the wrath of the law.
The minister said the technology being used in the dissemination of information through social media was not licensed, but ZICTA was on the ground monitoring.
He said ZICTA was also working with mobile service providers to see how the matter of social media abuse could be restrained, and called for proper use of social media.
Mr Mushimba said it was not the Government’s desire to stop social media, but enforcing measures to curtail abuse from misleading people and giving them false information.