People’s Party leader Mike Mulongoti says he is happy that in his tenure as Minister of Information and Broadcasting Times of Zambia did not face financial challenges as the case is in the  Kampamba Mulenga’s reign where the company is at the verge of collapsing.

Speaking in interview last week, Mulongoti said that he is glad that he left Times of Zambia financially nept.

He said whenever the institution was showing signs of liquidity problems, he could move in and  call the Ministry officials to find solutions to the challenges.

“…sometimes heads could roar in our meetings. I used to threaten them with dismissals if they fail to give me solutions  to the problem facing the institution because it was their duty to ensure that workers were paid on time. At some point, we had to recapitalize the institution from various sources of finances,” Mulongoti said.

He said it was a duty of the current  Information and Broadcasting Minister to ensure that Times of Zambia, a State owned newspaper is running effectively and working are getting their salaries.

He regretted that Times of Zambia workers have not been paid their salaries for the past nine months.

He said if need be,  government should  privatize the institution so as to save it from closing down.

When reminded that the most private media institution are worse off than Times Zambia as they have not paid workers for years,Mulongoti said government institution should lead by example.

In fact, Mulongoti said government has contributed to the financial handicap of the private media houses because of failure to pay them  from the advertisement they carried in  the last elections.

“So if that woman and her staff are sleeping in that Ministry then they better wake-up.”