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Economic meltdown
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-10
Monday March 6^th – Sunday March 12^th 2006

THE country’s continued economic decline (which this week saw inflation leap from 613% in January to a record 782% in February) and the IMF’s decision to uphold its sanctions against Zimbabwe also contested for media space.

ZBH carried 53 stories on the subject and government papers 48.

However, the stories were generally passive highlights of the economic problems that were not linked to government policies. The reluctance of these media to report holistically on the country’s problems was compounded by their fixation with conspiracy theories that supplanted any sensible debate on why the IMF had not restored Zimbabwe’s voting or lending rights.

The government Press alone devoted 11 stories to such conspiracies.

The Herald (10/3), for example, claimed that the US and Britain manipulated some IMF executive board members to "overturn" a vote that would have seen Harare get financial assistance from the multilateral institution. Besides quoting director of the Africa Group 1 Constituency, Peter Ngumbullu, saying the move was "unprecedented", there was no evidence to substantiate its claims that the Fund had "suddenly changed" the rules at the behest of the US and Britain to punish Zimbabwe.

The paper also failed to clarify what exactly the ‘rules’ stipulate and did not reconcile them with the IMF’s justification of its stance, which it buried in the story. Instead, it claimed that since 2001 the Fund "has unfairly treated Zimbabwe, failing to ensure the country’s stability but instead worsening the situation by playing into the hands of powerful Western countries". It added that there was "no doubt" that "the…so-called Zimbabwe Democracy Act 2001 – the illegal sanctions law that enables the US to block multi-national funding institutions from financing Zimbabwe – is being implemented by the IMF".

ZBH conveyed a similar message in the only two stories it aired on the matter (ZTV 10/3, 7am and Radio Zimbabwe 10/3, 1pm).

The government media was not alone in chastising the IMF.

Before the Fund’s meeting, The Daily Mirror (9/3) carried a pre-emptive comment urging the institution to reconsider its sanctions against Zimbabwe since the country had settled its GRA debt under "very difficult conditions" and partly implemented the Fund’s recommendations such as the liberalization of the exchange rate and removal of price controls.

After the IMF’s decision The Sunday Mirror (12/3) then dismissed the Fund’s resolution as part of US and Britain’s attempts to "effect regime change through an economic implosion".

However, the rest of the 12 stories that the remainder of the private media carried (radio stations [5] and papers [7]) on relations between the IMF and Zimbabwe gave a sober perspective of the matter. For example, The Zimbabwe Independent (10/3) reported that the IMF could not lend more funds to Zimbabwe because the country still owed US$119 million to the Fund.

In another issue, both these media agreed that government’s plans to seize 51 percent ownership of the country’s mines would severely affect the mining sector and investor confidence in general.

Besides, all papers continued to highlight indicators of economic collapse, such as soaring inflation and the galloping cost of living. The government media devoted 62 stories to the matter (ZBH 37 stories, and government papers 25) while the private media carried 41 reports (radio stations [9] newspapers [32])

Only the private media holistically related the symptoms of economic decay to government’s economic mismanagement.

The media’s sourcing patterns are captured in Figs 1 and 2.

Fig 1 Voice distribution in the government Press

Fig 2 Voice distribution in the private Press

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