THE Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) last week suspended three managers after they were accused of leaking information about a government directive to ignore stories involving MDC-T ministers. Two weeks ago The Standard reported that the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity had ordered the state media to stop covering the MDC-T ministers until the party re-established contact with Zanu PF.

ZBH chief executive Happison Muchechetere had earlier informed managers at the country's sole broadcaster that all stories involving the ministers should be taken off air immediately.

But after the widely condemned directive was exposed, the news editor O'Brian Rwafa, Jacob Phiri (chief producer) and Freedom Moyo (bulletins manager) were suspended for 10 days pending investigations.

They were told to surrender ZBH property but they would continue receiving their full salaries.

Muchechetere refused to comment on the latest developments. He said: "You are a journalist and you know what to do." Media, Information and Publicity Permanent secretary George Charamba whom many believe is behind the suspensions was not available for comment yesterday.

However, eyebrows were raised when two managers who were actually given the directive were left unscathed. Insiders said there was a vicious witch-hunt that had seen management approaching a mobile phone service provider seeking information about the phone numbers the managers called over the weekend.

Their suspension brings to more than 10 the journalists and former managers who still draw salaries from the corporation without working after they were stopped from reporting for work on political grounds.

The state-owned broadcaster is still paying seven journalists it unsuccessfully tried to retrench last year on accusations that they supported the MDC-T in the run up to the March 29 harmonised elections.

ZBH has lost a string of court cases against the journalists but still refuses to re-engage them.