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Donations or vote buying?
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-43
Monday October 25th - Sunday October 31st 2004

ALTHOUGH the few remaining alternative sources of information have been vigilant in exposing government excesses, they have failed to provide a context to the latest round of government largesse.

In the week under review the media have been reporting a new spate of donations of computers to selected schools by President Mugabe and the recipients of the new vehicle purchase scheme for chiefs, which allows them to "buy" pick-up trucks for less than a tenth of their value.

This new "facility" adds to the extraordinary powers recently vested in the country’s chiefs, while some government ministers have gone even further, offering to cover the cost of some chiefs’ contributions in what appears to be the most arbitrary manner.

Except for The Daily Mirror (29/10), none of the private media have recently examined the vote-buying implications of these donations, which the government media continue to present as normal practice.

For example, the Chronicle (25/10) and ZTV (26/10, 8pm) passively reported that Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo had handed over 11 vehicles to chiefs from Matabeleland North under the government’s Chiefs Vehicle Loan Scheme.

Reportedly, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo paid for four of the vehicles on the chiefs’ behalf. However, the report did not reveal the identity of the chiefs who had benefited from this spontaneous expression of generosity.

But Moyo’s donation is not isolated.

Earlier, ZTV (17/10, 8pm) reported that State Security Minister Nicholas Goche had also donated $12 million to chiefs in Mashonaland Central for part-payment of their vehicles. Chombo was quoted as having promised to do the same in his constituency.

In the same issue of the Chronicle, Chombo was quoted telling a rally in Brunapeg, Matabeleland South, that government had also given chiefs the power to impose fines of up to $100 million in their courts as part of the authorities’ "sweeping reforms…to make the institution of chieftainship respectable".

Currently, the maximum penalty chiefs can impose on offenders is $40,000.

Apart from a singular lack of public information in the media about the "sweeping reforms", the most disturbing aspect of this measure is the fact that the fines will not be surrendered to Treasury but will be used at the "discretion of the traditional leaders in terms of their customs". Such a measure has profound implications for Zimbabwe’s rule of law, let alone the communities under the chiefs’ jurisdiction. None of the media have attempted to explore the details about how these so-called reforms will work and how they will affect rural communities.

Chombo also reportedly handed over six new vehicles to chiefs in the area and promised to give their messengers bicycles.

While the government media reported these events, they also failed to examine how such irregular benevolence would affect the chiefs’ loyalties in next year’s elections.

In a related matter, ZTV (21/10, 8pm and 28/10, 8pm) unquestioningly reported on President Mugabe’s donation of computers to schools in Goromonzi and Nyazura.

None of the media queried whether this constituted another vote-buying gimmick or questioned the criteria under which the beneficiary schools were selected.

Instead, the government media merely gave the impression that the donations were part of government’s policy to develop rural schools.

But they failed to question why President Mugabe has personalised a government policy or why the events doubled up as ZANU PF campaign platforms if his mission was genuinely meant to empower the schools with information technology. Once again the media have allowed the distinction between the role of government and the interests of the ruling party to be completely lost.

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