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Local government issues and agricultural chaos
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2006-6
Monday February 6^th 2006 – Sunday February 12^th 2006

THE collapse in service delivery by local authorities and the infighting between powerful mandarins in Harare council, continued to dominate the media limelight during the week.

The Press carried 45 stories on the subject, 25 of which were in the official papers and 20 in the private Press. Although the government Press highlighted the council problems, they dodged discussing their root causes.

For instance, while they carried four reports on the row between Harare Town Clerk Nomutsa Chideya and the city’s "strategist", Chester Mhende, they avoided viewing this as arising from government’s meddling in the council’s affairs.

Neither did they question government’s decision to impose Mhende on the council or whether the ‘appointment’ was provided for under the Urban Councils Act.

Instead, The Herald (7/2) narrowly blamed council for the infighting, saying that although the appointment of a "strategist…has been done before by bigger cities throughout the world in a bid to provide efficient services", there was "absolutely no need for council to appoint" Mhende when he was basically duplicating Chideya’s job.

The failure by the government papers to critically deal with council matters was also evident in the nine stories they carried highlighting poor service delivery in the capital.

In fact, rather than audit government’s costly interference in local government, the Chronicle (6/2) found itself simplistically calling for the authorities’ intervention in the administration of Bulawayo saying it was time government "cracks the whip" on the council because it was failing "to provide water, collect refuse, attend to burst pipes as well as sewer blockages…"

The government Press’ failure to give a balanced view of the problems bedevilling the local authorities was reflected by its dependence on official voices as shown on Fig 1.

Fig 1. Voice distribution in the government Press

In contrast, the private weeklies categorically blamed government for the problems besetting local authorities. The Financial Gazette (9/2), for example, blamed the infighting in Harare on government saying Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo, whose "penchant for interfering willy-nilly in the affairs of the council" was the "most visible culprit".

The paper urged "civil society and well meaning political leaders" to resist such meddling, saying, "once such acts are not censured, accountability and efficiency are sacrificed for political expediency and personal aggrandisement".

The Zimbabwe Independent (10/2) concurred, quoting ‘sources’ saying Mhende’s political appointment was "meant to consolidate Zanu PF’s power" in the administration of Harare since "the Urban Councils Act does not provide for a position of a turnaround strategist or a deputy town clerk".

But the Mirror stable – like the government Press – avoided blaming government for the bickering in Harare. Instead, The Daily Mirror (10/2) appeared to call for greater intervention saying Chombo should "exercise his powers to end the squabbling at Town House once and for all" by clearly outlining "the duties of staff…and whip them into line".

Otherwise, most of the Mirror stable’s 14 stories were simply highlights of service delivery problems afflicting urban municipalities. The sourcing pattern of the private Press is shown in Fig 2.

Fig 2. Voice distribution in the private Press

While the government Press glossed over government’s involvement in the breakdown of service delivery in urban centres, ZBH equally downplayed the authorities’ contribution to problems rocking the farming sector.

All 23 reports it carried on the matter during the week were piecemeal and failed to reconcile the continuing farm disruptions, chronic shortages of inputs and outbreaks of pests – among others – with official predictions of a bumper harvest.

As a result, the national broadcaster’s audiences were inadequately informed about the state of Zimbabwe’s agricultural prospects. For example, in attempts to downplay the disastrous effects of government’s land reforms on food production, ZBH simplistically portrayed the activities of selected successful resettled farmers as typical of every beneficiary of the land programme.

This was demonstrated by ZTV (7/1, 6pm & 8pm) and (Spot FM 7/2, 1pm), which used the alleged successes of Mwenezi farmer Clara Shumba as indicative of how the area, "previously dominated by white commercial farmers", was now a "hub of enterprising new farmers".

How this was so remained unproven. Spot FM only noted that the new farmers had put a "lot of effort to clear their virgin land without any sophisticated machinery", adding: "The women in Mwenezi are grateful to the government as they are growing groundnuts, round-nuts as well as harvesting edible worms from Mupani trees."

The shallow manner in which ZBH covered the matter was mirrored by its selective reliance on the views of government and resettled farmers, as compared to independent agricultural experts. See Fig 3.

Fig. 3 Voice distribution on ZBH

The seven stories that private radio stations carried on Zimbabwe’s agricultural prospects (Studio 7 [six] and SW Radio Africa [one]) were straightforward.

For example, Studio 7 (7/2) reported economists forecasting a further collapse in the production of tobacco, saying this year the country was unlikely to sell "more than 50 million kilograms" of the crop, a figure they said translated to an 80 percent plunge from the record 270 million kilograms sold in 2000 before "land seizures devastated farming".

Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa (10/2) also exposed how government continued to spurn efforts by former commercial farmers to help rejuvenate agriculture. SW Radio Africa cited Agriculture Minister Joseph Made dismissing the farmers’ appeal to the authorities to stop new farm invasions and give fresh impetus to the distressed agricultural sector as "hogwash".

The national broadcaster censored these developments in its news bulletins. It was only on ZTV’s current affairs programme, Face the Nation (9/2), that official obstinacy in owning up to the problems in agriculture manifested itself.

For instance, the programme featured National Security and Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa denying the existence of new farm invasions, saying people were only going back "to take their land…and therefore, they are not invaders".

The programme’s presenter, Masimba Musariri, did not contest this generalization despite the fact that Mutasa acknowledged the prevalence of multiple farm ownerships. Neither did he challenge the minister’s decision to suppress the anomalies in the land reform programme on the grounds that "we do not want to make public every mistake going on in the country" in case we are "seen as a population of wrongdoers, which we are not".

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