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Economic Issues
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2005-13
Tuesday April 12th - Sunday April 17th 2005

ALTHOUGH ZBH carried 22 reports on the commodity price increases and shortages, it failed to view the issues as symptomatic of the country's economic meltdown. As a result, it reported the increases in isolation without giving a holistic picture of the situation on the ground or relating them to the country's macro-economic situation. Neither would the broadcaster openly discuss the causes of the commodity shortages and price hikes.

Instead, ZBH continued to accuse manufacturers of deliberately increasing commodity prices and causing shortages. For example, Radio Zimbabwe

(13/04,6am) claimed that "people" had accused "industrialists of sabotaging the economy because they were disappointed with the results of the elections." Without giving the business community the right of reply, the station took the issue further in its 8pm bulletin of the same day and attributed the fuel shortages in Bulawayo to the "country's detractors", who caused shortages "every time the country comes out of elections." To add to these unsubstantiated conspiracies, ZTV (13/04,8pm) quoted one unnamed Bulawayo resident accusing the MDC of causing fuel shortages by allegedly calling for the imposition of sanctions against the country.

ZTV found an ally in the form of The Daily Mirror (11/4) in peddling such ideas. The private daily's comment spuriously accused the MDC of working with businesses to sabotage Zimbabwe's economic growth "so that President Mugabe vacates State House and a former trade unionist moves in". The government Press was not any different. None of the 17 stories the papers carried on the subject hardly explained the real causes or extent of the economic distress. Rather, the official papers as illustrated by the business section of The Herald (13/4) appeared to downplay the inflationary environment bedevilling the country. While the paper announced the drop in the March annual inflation rate by 3.5 percentage points from the February annual rate of

127.2 percent, it tried to belittle the rise in the-month-on month inflation for the same period. The paper dishonestly noted that the month-on-month inflation rate for March had "slightly" increased to 4.2 percent from 3.1 percent in February. But an analysis of the statistics show that the monthly inflation had actually increased substantially as the 1.1 percent jump represented a 35% increase in just a single month.

The Herald's reluctance to unravel the truth resulted in the same issue of the paper reporting vaguely about a deal that the financially-troubled government-controlled airline, Air Zimbabwe, is reportedly poised to sign with the South African Airways, aimed at improving the economic fortunes of the local airliner. The paper merely hinted that the "deal - if signed - could see government's shareholding in the parastatal being heavily diluted" without analysing the causes behind the government decision to finally surrender its yet-to-be disclosed stake in the airline.

This unquestioning approach was also evident in other government papers. For example, the Sunday News (17/4) failed to ask the logic behind the holding of a million litres of fuel at the Beitbridge Border post by the Zimbabwe revenue authorities while the fuel situation in the Southern region, especially in Bulawayo, remained critical. Neither would The Sunday Mail fully explain the reasons behind the shortages of basic commodities in the country. Its supine tone was reflected by its over-reliance on government sources for comment as Figure 3 shows.

Fig 3 Voice distribution in the government Press

Notably, all alternative voices quoted mainly echoed the official stance. However, the private Press carried 25 stories that questioned government's economic policies and highlighted numerous economic ills afflicting the country mainly due to the shortage of foreign currency.

Studio 7 adopted a similar slant in its six reports on economic issues. And contrary to government media's sanitized socio-economic picture, the private radio station, and indeed The Daily Mirror (14/4) and Zimbabwe Independent reported on a survey by the Zimbabwe Food and Nutrition Council conducted in collaboration with the Health Ministry, which recorded chronic malnutrition levels of around 47 percent in children living on commercial farms.

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