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Local government wrangles
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Extract from Weekly Media Update No. 2003-01
January 6th - January 12th 2003

The public media's role as government's megaphone was exposed when they unquestioningly endorsed government's decision to appoint governors for Harare and Bulawayo and its expansion of a commission appointed last year, ostensibly to assist Harare City Council develop a turn-around plan for the capital. Furthermore, the government controlled media continued to be used as conduits for government's relentless campaign to discredit Harare's council and particularly its mayor, Elias Mudzuri.

For example, out of the 17 stories the public press published on the conflict between the opposition MDC-led Harare city council and local government minister, Ignatius Chombo, 15 were in support of government while the remainder were neutral announcements. ZTV carried seven reports in its

8pm bulletin on the issue. All reports, which occupied 10% of the total time allocated to 8pm news during the week, portrayed Mudzuri in a bad light. 3FM carried nine council-related stories in its main news bulletins. And like ZTV, all were negative depictions of Mudzuri.

Conversely, the private Press carried 19 stories on the conflict: 10 reports accorded Mudzuri a platform to give his side of the story, eight were neutral and the remainder favoured government.

The public media's pro-government coverage of the Chombo/Mudzuri wrangle was basically achieved through simplistic manipulation of popular sentiments (The Herald (9/1), Demonstration thwarted); propaganda disguised as news (The Herald (7/1), Mudzuri admits interfering in tenders); and partisan reports masquerading as public consensus on government policy (Chronicle, (9/1), Governors' appointment hailed).

In fact, while the bias demonstrated by the public media seemed to stem purely from its pursuance of government's political agenda, the pro-MDC standpoint adopted by the private media was seemingly triggered mostly by its desire to counter distortions carried in the public media in the first place.

A classic example was The Herald (7/1) and Daily News' (9/1) coverage of Mudzuri's alleged "interference" in the Harare City Council's refuse collection tenders.

Whereas The Herald (and ZBC-ZTV & 3FM, 6/01, 8pm) seemed hell-bent on criminalizing Mudzuri's "interference" in the tender process out of context, The Daily News on the other hand provided the mayor with the platform to make "his comments in full", which he alleged The Herald had selectively used.

Indeed, The Herald story withheld some of the background as to why the mayor had interfered in the tender. Neither did it adequately avail the information in the "documents" it said were in its possession.

But The Daily News established that Mudzuri was compelled to query the city council's tender specification for refuse collection after discovering that there was a clause "which virtually excluded new players", and in the process protected the companies that were given contracts by the then ZANU PF council led by Solomon Tawengwa in August 1997. Most of the companies are linked to ZANU PF officials.

And contrary to the impression created by The Herald report that Mudzuri did not consult his officers to have the tender clause changed to accommodate new players, The Daily News established that Josephine Ncube, the council's Chamber Secretary, its top legal adviser and Joseph Issa, the council's audit manager, had agreed that there was merit in Mudzuri's concerns. Still, The Herald (9/1) continued to malign the mayor whom it accused "of flouting tender procedures (in order) to give an unfair advantage to some companies".

To lend credence to its claims, The Daily News (10/1) carried a story in which it alleged that Highdon, a company owned by Mcdonald Chapfika, brother to ZANU PF's MP for Mutoko North, had prejudiced the council of more than $118 million through overcharging.

Highdon is contracted to supply water chemicals to the city council. However, Mcdonald denied the allegations.

Equally unprofessional was the manner in which The Herald (9/1) misrepresented facts pertaining to a foiled demonstration by MDC activists protesting against Chombo's alleged interference in the affairs of the council.

The paper untruthfully attributed the failure of the protest to poor attendance, while in reality, the demonstration failed to take off because it was quashed by the police, SW Radio Africa (8/01), The Daily News, Financial Gazette and Daily Mirror (9/1).

In fact, the assertion by the paper also contradicted the substance of its headline, Demonstration thwarted.

Significant too, was the public media's unquestioning acceptance of government's announcement that it would appoint governors for Harare and Bulawayo to coordinate development in the cities, The Herald and Chronicle (6/1).

ZBC (ZTV, 7/01 & Radio Zimbabwe, 8pm) legitimized the move by quoting Chombo as saying: "This is actually a correction of an anomaly where a province as big as Harare, and Bulawayo . is not represented by a governor, yet smaller provinces like Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South, Mashonaland Central . have a governor representing them. . So it was a disservice to those two metropolitan cities not to have governors and district administrators".

While Chombo was quoted, in the same bulletins, as having said, "the appointment of governors should not be viewed as a ploy to monitor the activities of the MDC executive mayors", his subsequent statement (on ZTV) exposed government's machinations.

He stated: "It is not a political gimmick. It cannot be a political gimmick to improve the service provision in this town or in Bulawayo. .We want residents in those said provinces to receive services that they are paying for. We want government through that system to provide whatever it is (sic) intends to provide."

However, his statement, which actually confirmed that the governors are set to encroach into areas of municipal jurisdiction such as providing services to residents, escaped ZBC's analytical capacity.

The public broadcaster actually attempted to use Mudzuri to endorse the move. Alleging that he had "refused to speak in front of cameras", ZTV quoted Mudzuri as having said: "The appointment of a governor for Harare Province would not in any way affect the operations of the city council which he said is not bound by any law to obey orders from governors" adding "Mudzuri's statements are contrary to speculation that the city council is against the appointment of governors".

ZBC also nonchalantly reported further attempts by government to clip the powers of the MDC-led municipalities by expanding the committee it appointed to ostensibly assist in the administration of Harare, (ZTV & 3FM, 8/01, 8pm) and its appointment of a three-member committee to "bring sanity" into Chegutu municipality (11/01, 8pm).

So passive and partisan was the public media that their reports on this government interference in the running of MDC-led councils hinged heavily either on government or ruling ZANU PF officials. They also failed to come up with a clear analysis of how duties and responsibilities would be distributed between the elected mayors, councilors and government-appointed governors and committees without duplication.

By contrast, the private media challenged Chombo's sincerity in proposing the appointments considering his uneasy working relationship with Mudzuri. Its sourcing too was more diverse. It ranged from government officials, social commentators, to ordinary citizens.

Besides, the private media interpreted the move as government's covert plan to neutralize the MDC's influence in Zimbabwe's biggest cities, The Daily Mirror and Zimbabwe Independent of the same day (10/1).

The Daily Mirror quoted Harare residents as querying Chombo's sudden interest in council business, while The Zimbabwe Independent noted in its editorial that "the so-called anomaly about Harare and Bulawayo going without governors for 22 years is ZANU PF's attempt to vitiate the powers of executive mayors and impose its own pernicious policies on residents of MDC controlled cities."

Notwithstanding this, both the public and private media were unable to fully explore the burden the appointments were likely to inflict on the fiscus, what the would-be governors briefs would be and whether those areas run by both governors and mayors were indeed better "coordinated" than Harare and Bulawayo.

Meanwhile, the polarity between the private and the public media in covering the Harare council issues was further exposed in their reports of the arrest of Mudzuri in Mabvuku for allegedly "addressing an illegal meeting". While ZBC (11/1, 8pm) and The Sunday Mail (12/1) presented the arrest as normal execution of the rule of law, The Standard (12/1) interpreted the arrest as signaling "the country's slide into a police state". The paper reported that Mudzuri and 21 other people including councilors, were arrested when they were explaining to residents "the truth surrounding the crippling water crisis", a position dismissed by The Sunday Mail. The paper quoted police Superintendent Brighton Mudzamiri as having said "the gathering was a group of youths that police strongly suspect to be MDC supporters".

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