Patriotic Front parliamentary chief whip Steven Chungu says the decision by the party leadership to constitute a social media crack squad for monitoring the usage of the platform is a welcome move for as long as it will not hinder the freedoms of members.

In an interview, Chungu who is also Luanshya Central PF member of parliament hastened to state it was important to have discipline and proper use of acceptable language in every group or club.

“It is a welcome idea for as long it is not going to step on the rights of the same members. But if it just about disciplining them and finding a way of monitoring to say ‘some good language has to be used,’ I don’t think there is anything wrong with that,” Chungu said.

“In fact, the idea is to instil discipline in the party members. It is a welcome idea because social media has also its own negatives and positives but if it is used accordingly and for the same reason that has been advised to say the monitory in terms of discipline, [that it’s good] because I think at times it has been abused by the attacks coming from some party members who have taken advantage of the same social media by insulting senior party members.”

Chungu said if one wants to be a member of the PF, they should also be ready to abide by its rules and regulations.

“You may be aware that our party constitution also has clauses that have to do with the usage of language. There should be the use of good language especially when they are discussing the leadership of the party. Every club has got its own rules. If you want to be a club or support of a certain club, you abide by the same rules that have been set up by that same club that you want to belong to. So if the party is saying ‘we want a disciplined cadre’ you have to abide by those guidelines,” said Chungu.

“So if these are the rules that have been set out for any person who wants to join this club called the PF, and it’s guided by certain principles of the PF which says ‘you should not steal,’ for example we have clauses that talk about insulting language as an offence, and we are members of that political party, we should abide by the rules that have been set out by that club. People are calling for discipline [and] we are calling for a disciplined cadre as a party. And if one wants to be a member of the party, they should follow what is stipulated in our constitution.”