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Policy contradictions
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-32
Monday August 22^nd – Sunday August 28^th 2005

The government media’s preoccupation with glossing over defective government policies once again found currency in the way these media failed to report on inconsistencies surrounding the authorities’ policy U-turns, particularly relating to increases in school fees, constitutional amendments and Operations Murambatsvina and Garikai. (News of the vehicle licence fiasco only appeared on the Monday (29/8) following the close of this weekly review.)

Except for The Sunday Mail’s two sensible articles on government’s decision to reverse its recent announcement to backdate massive increases in government school fees, the rest of the 19 stories the government-controlled newspapers carried on the matter, the Constitutional Amendment (No.17) Bill and Murambatsvina failed to address the inherent conflicts arising from current government policies.

For example, The Herald (26/8) failed to reconcile contradictions between Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere and his permanent secretary, Stephen Mahere, on how to effect the school fees increases.

While last week’s Sunday News (21/8) reported Mahere saying the fees had been backdated to January "in the best interests of education in the country", The Herald reported Chigwedere telling Parliament that backdating the school fees was "not government policy".

In addition, there were no attempts to clarify on whose orders Mahere had made the initial announcement.

However, The Sunday Mail (28/8) revealed that despite Chigwedere’s about-turn, schools continued to backdate the fees as they had "not received any official communication" on the policy shift. In addition, the paper criticized the ministry for its contradictory position on the fees hike saying the move did "not inspire confidence in the country’s education system" but "confusion".

Except for the Standard (28/8), the rest of the private media also failed to critically examine the school fees conflict between Chigwedere and Mahere.

ZBH ignored the issue altogether.

However, the national broadcaster joined its print counterparts in endorsing government’s continued defence of its blitz on the country’s urban poor in the name of fighting crime and urban renewal. Consequently, none of the 22 stories that ZBH (ZTV [17] and Power FM [5]) carried on the issue highlighted the policy contradictions, confusion and the logistical problems riddling Operations Murambatsvina and Garikai.

The extent of the humanitarian disaster the clampdown had caused was again only apparent in the private media. For example, while the government media highlighted the authorities’ claims of the purported successes of Murambatsvina, the private media illustrated how the government was actually undermining its own credibility by frustrating donors trying to help the 700 000 people directly affected by the purge despite government being on record as welcoming any assistance for Murambatsvina’s victims.

Studio 7 (22/8 & 25/8), SW Radio Africa (23/8 & 24/8) and The Standard for example, reported the South Africa Council of Churches (SACC) complaining that after a month of delays by Zimbabwean authorities, its truckloads of blankets and relief food for Murambatsvina’s victims remained undistributed as they awaited customs clearance from Zimbabwe.

Studio 7 (25/8) reported SACC accusing Harare of turning "its relief initiative into a political football" with its church spokesman saying: "…We are deliberately being given a run-around…It is absolutely frustrating." The station (26/8) also carried a Reuters story reporting that government had rejected a UN plan to conduct an emergency drive aimed at sourcing US$30 million to alleviate the suffering of 300 000 urban victims. It quoted a UN Emergency Relief Coordinator spokeswoman saying they had failed to reach an "agreement with government on the text…people affected, how to help them, the role of NGOs and other operational aspects". The official media ignored these issues.

Instead, ZTV (22/8,6pm) merely reported the Local Government Ministry urging those who had been (re)allocated stands at Whitecliffe to "start building" because "government doesn’t have all the resources to achieve (its) target" of building them houses.

The report did not question government’s earlier pledge to build core houses for all the people it had displaced or quiz the logic behind its calls for the resource-starved victims to build their own houses while claiming simultaneously that it had set aside $3 trillion for their rehabilitation.

In fact, the station’s passive coverage ignored even those contradictions within its own reports. For example, although its main bulletin of the same day carried a glowing national round-up of Operation Garikai’s progress, which it said was "going on well", it cited Water Resources Minister Munacho Mutezo admitting that government’s target of building 5 000 houses in the country by August 31^st "is not going to be met at this pace".

And besides providing vague updates on the alleged successes of Garikai nationwide, ZBH did little to reconcile these achievements with the "challenges" littering the programme.

For example, ZTV (26/08,8pm) and Power FM (25/08,6am) failed to query the optimism of Operation Garikai’s ‘chairman’ in Chiredzi "to meeting government’s target of housing units by 31^st August" in light of "water constraints, among other challenges…hampering progress."

The government Press’ nine reports on the subject were equally unhelpful.

They failed to question government over its continued eviction of the homeless and its arrests of informal traders despite its declaration that Murambatsvina had ended. Neither did they give a coherent figure for the houses government has since built and how this relates to the 5 000 it has declared would be complete countrywide by August 31^st.

Instead, The Manica Post (26/8) unquestioningly reported Minister Mutezo declaring the reconstruction deadline had been extended to October 15 because "targets for the construction of houses have been doubled in all provinces" to "ensure that more people were decently accommodated before the onset of the rainy season".

Similarly, The Sunday Mail (28/8) allowed Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo to make the insensible claim that the "second phase" of government’s reconstruction, which would see 11 000 houses being built and 15 000 stands "set aside for those who can build without government assistance", would reduce housing backlog by "at least 200 000".

And while Power FM (22/8, 1pm), ZTV (22/8, 6pm) and The Herald (26/8) meekly cited acting Information Minister Chen Chimutengwende boasting that Operation Garikai, "arguably the largest housing programme to be undertaken by a government in Africa" would "improve the lives of many people", private media reports presented a different picture.

SW Radio Africa (22/8), for example, reported that the world human rights watchdog, Amnesty International (AI), had released new film footage smuggled out of Zimbabwe, revealing the "desperate plight" of the country’s homeless at Hopley Farm.

AI researcher on Zimbabwe, Audrey Gaughran, told the station that during its mission the rights body "had found evidence that the government of Zimbabwe was seeking to hide the visible signs of the problems it created".

The Zimbabwe Independent (26/8) also exposed the appalling living conditions at Hopley.

The government media’s failure to question the authorities' policy decisions resulted in these media merely endorsing or amplifying government’s position on the proposed amendments to the Constitution. The government Press carried seven stories on the topic and ZBH two.

The stories only highlighted government’s defence of the amendments and drowned alternative opinion. As a result, they failed to explain how the amendments would severely erode the fundamental human rights of all Zimbabweans, a view that was highlighted in the four reports carried by the private press.

Although both sections of the Press seemed to have diverse sourcing as reflected in Figs 1 and 2, the government Press largely muffled the MDC and independent commentators’ reservations on government policies by quoting them in the context of ministerial responses to their concerns. This was mirrored by their dependence on government voices.

Fig 1 Voice distribution of government Press

Fig 2. Voice distribution of private Press

ZBH comments were also heavily dependent on official voices, which they quoted 20 times (80%) out of the 25 voices it recorded. On the other hand, private radio stations discriminated against government voices, quoting alternative voices four times, foreign diplomats (four) and the MDC twice.

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