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IMF visit and economic decline
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2006-5
Monday January 30^th 2006 – February 5^th 2006

THE official media’s reluctance to expose issues that reflect badly on government’s economic policies was evident in the manner in which they underplayed the IMF’s disquiet over Zimbabwe’s declining economy.

All 13 stories (ZBH [7] and the official Press [6]) on the Fund’s fact-finding mission muffled the financial institution’s concern over government’s economic reforms while simultaneously presenting the IMF as having been impressed by the country’s economic turnaround strategies. ZBH also celebrated Harare’s efforts to settle its debts with the Fund and narrowly presented it as the sole yardstick the IMF would use to assess Zimbabwe’s economic performance.

It was only through Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa’s comments (ZBH, 2/2, main bulletins) that the broadcaster’s audiences were given a hint of the IMF’s unhappiness with the way Zimbabwe’s economy was being run. ZTV, for example, quoted Murerwa saying that although the Fund had expressed some concern over the authorities’ policies, government was "confident of retaining membership" with the IMF as it was "impressed" by measures taken to resuscitate the economy.

No attempt was made to investigate independently and fully discuss the Fund’s concerns.

Instead, the reporter simplistically tried to project the visit as certain to the pave way for economic prosperity saying if Zimbabwe clears its arrears before the IMF’s executive board meeting scheduled for March, it would retain its membership "regain its voting rights, benefit from technical co-operation and boost its credit worthiness".

No comment was sought from the IMF or independent analysts on the matter.

The Herald and Chronicle (3/2) followed suit. They also sought to portray the IMF team as having been impressed "by the on-going economic revival initiatives", especially the banking sector, which it reportedly identified as a "pillar" around "which the economic turnaround programme could revolve". However, the papers provided no facts to support these claims, nor did they try to balance Murerwa’s comments on the IMF visit with alternative ones – or even from the IMF itself.

In fact, the official dailies’ blindly positive portrayal of the IMF as being happy with government’s economic programme was belied by their revelations that the two parties, apparently aware of the shortcomings in the current economic revival strategies, had agreed on the need for an overhaul of at least five key policy areas. These included an end to farm invasions and the protection of property rights, privatisation of parastatals, civil service reform, reducing the money supply and the clearance of the IMF debt.

Earlier, the two official dailies (1/2) tried to spice up a story on a call by the National Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (NANGO) urging the IMF not to expel Zimbabwe over its debt by adding unsubstantiated speculation of their own. For example, they noted: "Although Zimbabwe managed to pay half of its debt…there has been an insinuation from the country’s detractors that the IMF should expel Zimbabwe."

None of the detractors were named and the nature of the "insinuation" was not identified.

Instead, The Sunday Mail (5/2) columnist, Tafataona Mahoso, continued to try and discredit the IMF by projecting it as insincere and only doing the bidding of the Western capitalist world.

Although the government media carried 62 (ZBH [40] and official Press [22]) reports on further economic decline, they typically treated these issues in isolation without linking them to the country’s poor macro-economic environment. For example, none of the stories interpreted the soaring cost of living and the shortages of fuel, power and mealie-meal, among others, as a manifestation of the authorities’ poor handling of the economy.

This is why even when ZTV (31/1, 6&8pm) quoted bus operator Miller Musanhi attributing the recent fare increases to failure by the government-run National Oil Company of Zimbabwe to supply bus operators with subsidized fuel resulting in them sourcing the commodity from the parallel market, it still presented the fare hikes as unjustified.

The next evening ZTV unquestioningly reported Transport Minister Chris Mushohwe as having "warned" bus operators, who are "unilaterally increasing bus fares" despite having "agreed with government and other stakeholders to the contrary", to revert to "authorised" fares.

The station made no attempt to seek any clarity on what fares Mushohwe was referring to. Instead, the station simply quoted him advising the public to "report overcharging" operators to a "commissioner in his ministry".

Notably, while The Sunday Mail did actually report on the suspension of electricity supplies to the country by South African power utility, Eskom, due to "forced outages in their system", the paper made no attempt to assess the government’s readiness to deal with such crises.

Neither did the paper question the failure by the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority to access adequate coal supplies for its Hwange power station, nor why the power utility had been forced to charge unviable rates for so long. This blatantly supine coverage of economic matters by the government media was reflected in their dependence on official comments as shown in Figs 1 and 2.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution in the government Press

Notably, eight out of the 12 alternative voices were anonymous.

Fig 2 Voice distribution on ZBH

The private media were generally forthright in their assessment of the IMF’s fact-finding mission and the state of the country’s economy in the 44 stories they carried on these issues (private Press [29] and private radio stations [15]).

For example, they noted that although the country was likely to retain its membership of the IMF, the Fund remained unimpressed by the government’s economic policies. The Financial Gazette (2/2), SW Radio Africa (1&2/2), Zimbabwe Independent (3/2) and Studio 7 (3/2) revealed that the global financial institution was actually pressing the authorities to undertake major policy reforms to resuscitate the economy.

Among the IMF’s concerns, reported the Independent, were the country’s fiscal ineptitude, deteriorating humanitarian crisis and the resurgent inflationary pressures in the economy.

They also carried several follow-up reports on Gono’s candid examination of the ills besieging the economy. For example, the Gazette comment, Deal with the politics, warned that the monetary policy alone would not work; and that it needed to be complemented by an effective "fiscal policy and the politics of the country, neither of which is the case at the moment".

Central to the sustained revival of the economy, it added, was the restoration and rebuilding of Zimbabwe’s international relations through the creation of a new, people-centred constitution, improving the country’s human rights record, democratisation and expansion of political and Press freedoms, respect for property rights and the eradication of policy contradictions.

This critical approach was also evident in stories the private media carried on indicators of economic decline, which included power shortages, steep price increases and the crumbling health delivery system. They blamed all these problems on failed government policies.

The Daily Mirror (4/2) announced that the country’s poverty datum line had again leapt from $16.6 million in December to $21.8 million in January. The Chronicle 1/2 and Spot FM 3/2, 1pm were first to report this news.

The private papers’ attempts at balancing official opinions with alternative ones are shown in Fig 3.

Fig. 3 Voice pattern in Private papers

However, the private stations compromised their critical approach by depending more on independent commentators almost to the exclusion of other pertinent sources as reflected by Studio 7’s sourcing pattern. See Fig 4.

Fig. 4 Voice distribution on Studio 7

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