Back to Index

Inflation and economic issues
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-22
Monday June 13^th – Sunday June 19^th 2005

THE official media’s preoccupation with portraying government in a good light was not confined to Operation Murambatsvina as symptoms of further economic decline did not get due prominence in the 42 stories that they carried on the matter (ZBH 27 and government papers 15).

These media’s reluctance to fully discuss the causes of the continued economic meltdown was reflected by the manner in which their stories glossed over Zimbabwe’s highly inflationary environment characterised by crippling fuel shortages.

For instance, the government Press – which carried seven stories on these issues – failed to view these problems as indicative of the general economic decline as illustrated by The Herald and Chronicle (15/6), which simply attributed the rise in inflation from 129,1% in April to 144,4% in May to "surprise price increases effected by retailers and manufacturers in the post-election period".

In fact, The Herald (16/6) even saw conspiracies behind the rise in inflation, opining that it was a consequence of "the haphazard price increases by retailers and manufacturers", driven by other "motives" aimed at "derailing the economic turnaround programme".

To reinforce the notion that commodity shortages were artificial, the Chronicle (14/6) gave the impression that the on-going Murambatsvina had resulted in most basic commodities emerging on supermarket shelves "as people operating the black market turn away from illegal dealings".

While ZIMPAPERS blamed the commodity price increases on the alleged machinations of the business community, they justified the hike in the selling price of their newspapers saying this was due to the increase in "production costs and raw materials".

ZBH did no fare any better. ZTV (14/6,8pm) also announced the increase in inflation that the Central Statistics Office attributed "to the rise in food prices", but carried no analysis on the development or reasons for the hikes as is its custom when the rate of inflation falls. Rather, Power FM and Radio Zimbabwe (17/6, 1pm) merely reported the RBZ governor’s assurance that "Zimbabweans have been assured that the recent rise in inflation will be arrested by year end."

It was not clear how the governor would do this.

The official media’s superficial handling of the topic also manifested itself in the way they largely paid lip service to the scale of fuel shortages. The closest The Herald (18/6) came to addressing the matter was when it unquestioningly reported Energy Minister Mike Nyambuya saying his ministry would present to Parliament the Petroleum Bill, which is meant to regulate the oil industry, as part of government’s short-term measures aimed at ensuring adequate fuel supplies.

There was no detail about the Bill or exactly how it would resolve the crisis.

Further, despite revealing that the shortage was partly due to the rise in international oil prices, which had resulted in the country "receiving less fuel than it used to buy", the paper failed to challenge the authorities on why they had not adjusted their pricing too.

Rather, the paper drifted into its typical blame-game and seemed to attribute the shortages to the "fuel industry" that was diverting "the product onto the parallel market".

This vague and intimidating reporting reflected comments from Energy and Power Development Minister Mike Nyambuya who declared that "his ministry and law enforcement agents will intensify monitoring and inspection of the fuel supply system to ensure equitable distribution…"(ZTV, 17/6,8pm; Power FM and Radio Zimbabwe, 18/6,1pm).

The report did not question how much fuel government was importing, if any.

The official media’s professional ineptitude in handling the topic was illustrated by their reliance on official comment as shown on Fig 4.

Fig. 1 Public Press voice distribution

Notably, alternative and business voices that were quoted echoed official views. The papers also carried four editorials that approved of government’s economic policies.

In contrast, the private Press was analytical in its 23 stories on inflation, price increases and other economic issues although Studio 7 inexplicably ignored these issues altogether. For instance, The Standard, which related the increase in inflation to the country’s poor economic performance, quoted analysts as having said the recent hike in inflation had sounded a "death knell" to government’s economic turnaround efforts.

The paper quoted economist Tony Hawkins actually projecting a further increase in inflation saying the imminent hikes in electricity tariffs and fuel prices will "fuel the rampaging inflation scourge".

The paper also claimed that the country’s economic woes were set to worsen following the printing of money by government to "finance an overshooting Budget deficit after failing to extract about $6 trillion dollars from local credit markets".

The report was part of the 11 stories that the private papers carried on commodity shortages and price increases, all attributed to government’s failed economic policies.

Visit the MMPZ fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP