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Commodity shortages and price increases
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-21
Monday June 6^th – Sunday June 12^th 2005

THE government’s month-long campaign against the urban poor appeared to divert media attention from other pertinent developments such as commodity price increases and shortages. As a result, these topics received inadequate coverage in the media during the week.

For example, none of the media gave a holistic picture of the situation regarding commodity shortages and skyrocketing prices and service charges.

Instead, ZBH glossed over such matters by carrying 41 stories, which sought to present a glowing image of the country’s agricultural productivity and assuring the public that the authorities had taken adequate measures to avert food shortages.

For example, Radio Zimbabwe (6/5,1pm), ZTV and Power FM (7/6, 8pm) passively quoted Grain Marketing Board boss, Samuel Muvuti, saying the parastatal was "sourcing enough food to feed Zimbabweans" as "50 trucks…come into Zimbabwe with food" per day. But Muvuti was not challenged to explain the tonnage the trucks were bringing and what percentage of the required 1,8 million tonnes the amount imported so far represented.

ZTV’s reluctance to discuss the scale of commodity shortages manifested itself in 6pm bulletin (10/6) which carried an isolated report on bread shortages in Mutare. But it evaded the causes of the scarcity claiming "it was not clear why there are shortages". No attempt was made to relate the situation in Mutare to the nationwide state of affairs.

This uncritical stance was reflected in ZBH’s over-reliance on official comment as shown in Fig 1.

Fig 1 Voice distribution on ZBH

Like their broadcasting counterparts, all but two of the 13 stories the official Press carried on the matter absolved government of any economic mismanagement while invariably blaming it on the country’s detractors, corruption and the black market.

This blame-game occasionally assumed absurd levels with The Manica Post, for example, noting in its editorial: "…the drive to self-enrich that had gripped Zimbabwe until the recent clean-ups is not an indigenous phenomenon, but a derivative of Western corporate capitalism".

The paper seemed to be amplifying President Mugabe’s speech made on the eve of the opening of Parliament, reported in The Herald (9/6) We’ll never collapse. The Herald passively reported Mugabe narrowly blaming Zimbabwe’s economic problems on drought and the evil machinations by "some people… European Union countries, the United States and Australia" who were "always contriving to bring down Zimbabwe".

Besides blaming others for the country’s economic problems, the government-controlled papers also carried six stories that portrayed Zimbabwe’s agriculture as on the mend and that government was importing sufficient grain to ward off starvation.

However, The Herald Business (8/6), like the private Daily Mirror (7/6) and Studio 7 (7/6) reported that the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ)’s month-on-month cost of living basket had jumped by 28 percent from about $2.3 million in April to over $3 million in May. These two reports were part of the 18 stories the private Press carried on the subject.

Although the private media, like the official media, also failed to fully update their audiences on the commodities in short supply or those whose prices had gone up, their stories were more informative.

For instance, they continued to expose government’s distribution of food relief on party lines (The Standard) and the adverse effects of government’s land reforms on food production (The Daily Mirror, 8/6 and Zimbabwe Independent).

And while The Sunday Mail reported that the shortage of dairy products was artificial, The Daily Mirror (8/6) disputed this by quoting a commercial farmers’ leader saying, because of the botched land reforms, it was likely to take three years for the dairy industry to produce adequate milk for the country.

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