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Local government and agricultural chaos
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2006-5
Monday January 30^th 2006 – February 5^th 2006

ONLY the government media gave notable publicity to the authorities’ chaotic policies that have characterised poor service delivery in the country’s urban centres. They devoted 60 reports (ZBH [35] and government Press [25]) to the matter.

However, their extensive coverage did not translate into critical analysis of the problems as they mainly highlighted the symptoms and avoided open discussion of the root causes of the problems.

For instance, none of them queried the criteria the government-appointed Harare commission used to hike its market tariffs, ostensibly to regularize the operations of vendors and to raise revenue to maintain the city’s trading facilities.

Except for Radio Zimbabwe (4/2, 1pm) none of them questioned whether the tariffs were commensurate with the service the council was providing. Instead, The Herald (2/2) merely focused on the clashes between farmers and municipal police at the Lusaka satellite vegetable market after the council hiked vending fees almost six-fold to $575 000 per day.

Similarly, The Sunday Mail (5/2) passively reported on an outcry by residents over council’s decision to charge "exorbitant levies" for farmers and flea market traders, saying the increases could push the prices of vegetables and other commodities up. According to the new tariff structure, said the paper, pushcart operators would, by year-end, be paying a "whopping $34million per month". But there was no attempt to rationalize the charges with economic reality.

Earlier, The Herald (3/2) seemed to justify such hikes, arguing that the farmers "who use the markets must be willing to pay for the privilege" and stop "expecting taxpayers and ratepayers to subsidize their businesses".

The official press’ unquestioning nature also resulted in The Herald (2/2) failing to investigate the circumstances leading to government’s elevation of Harare strategist Chester Mhende and his actual duties in council. The paper merely revealed that his "appointment at Town House has been shrouded in controversy" with the suspended directors at the council accusing him of "purging them for voicing their concerns" over the city’s turnaround strategy.

In fact, rather than critically examine government’s continuing interference in the running of municipalities, The Herald (3/2) projected it as paying dividends. It quoted Harare governor David Karimanzira expressing his "happiness with the seriousness of the council’s projects", adding that the municipality should have "no excuse if it fails to deliver service to residents" following government’s approval of its proposed 2006 budget.

The government media’s reliance on official voices in their stories was illustrated by the government Press’ sourcing pattern as captured in Fig 1.

Fig 1 Voice distribution in the official newspapers

Apart from The Financial Gazette (2/2) story, The gloves are off, in which it reported central bank governor Gideon Gono criticizing government for its interference in the operations of local authorities, such as Harare and Chitungwiza, the rest of the seven reports the private Press carried on the topic were low-key.

The stories, mostly carried in the Mirror stable – like those in the government Press – failed to go beyond the real reasons behind the crumbling infrastructure characteristic of urban councils. The private stations were largely silent on local government issues. However, they did carry four stories revealing that despite Gono’s condemnation of land occupations, farm seizures and the looting of farm equipment have continued to take place in parts of the country.

Studio 7 (30 &2/2) reported that members of the army, police and Central Intelligence Organisation were invading farms in Manicaland, Mashonaland West and East armed with offer letters signed by Lands and Security Minister Didymus Mutasa.

SW Radio Africa (30/1) also reported on the seizure of Gletwyn Estate outside Harare by the police and a private company, Divine Homes, owned by Deputy Minister of Finance David Chapfika.

The next day the station revealed that the police continued to defy court orders compelling them to return farm equipment they confiscated from commercial farmers in Masvingo. Citing ZimOnline, the station reported head of the Farm Equipment Committee, Senior Assistant Police Commissioner Loveness Ndanga, as having justified the police’s illegal actions on the basis that they were following "political orders and not court orders".

ZBH ignored these issues in the 38 stories it carried on agriculture and food security. In fact, ZTV (2/2, 6&8pm) only cursorily referred to the topic in the context of a rehashed interview it held with Mutasa, who announced that government would embark on yet another land audit to clean up the mess in the agricultural sector.

Otherwise, the rest of its stories sought to depict government as committed to reviving the sector. ZBH also provided wildly excessive publicity to a public lecture on biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by visiting US professor Thomas de Gregori as a solution to the country’s food crisis.

ZBH was so obsessed with the lecture that it devoted 41% of its agricultural and food security stories to the academic. The Herald too, picked up on ZBH’s obsession towards the end of the week.

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