Back to Index

Economic chaos
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-36
Monday September 4^th 2006- Sunday September 10^th 2006

THE government media continued to obscure the root causes of the country’s economic distress in the 91 stories they carried on the subject (ZBH [51] and government papers [40]). Instead of relating the decline to government’s economic policies, they restricted themselves to blaming those outside government for the confusion.

This was illustrated by the 20 stories that ZBH (12) and government papers (eight) carried on the standoff between government and school authorities over increases in school fees. They narrowly portrayed the increases – which government insisted should be pegged on levels of last year’s third term as compared to this year’s second term figures – as unjustifiable profiteering.

For example, ZTV (4/9,8pm), Radio Zimbabwe (5/9,6am) and The Herald (9 & 10/9) and Chronicle (6/9) passively reported Education Permanent Secretary Stephen Mahere threatening action against those schools increasing fees without fully examining the reasons for the hikes.

The government dailies quoted Mahere saying those defying the order risked "being prosecuted in terms of the provisions of the Education and Anti-Corruption Acts". There was no explanation how exactly the Anti-Corruption Act applied. However, in a rare departure from its unbridled pro-government slant, The Herald (6/9) criticised the ministry’s school fees regime, saying the ministry had misplaced its priorities by "spending many man-hours" trying to "limit" the "right of a parent who can afford the fees to choose" a school they want their children to attend. Still, it avoided viewing the fee chaos, which has characterised the beginning of every school term in recent years, as indicative of the declining economy.

Similarly, the official media’s 44 stories (ZBH [31] and government papers [13]) on the continued confusion surrounding the fuel sector were detached from government policy.

Instead, almost all the reports simply blamed fuel dealers and banks for the confusion while simultaneously projecting government as having taken measures to address problems bedevilling the sector. Except for The Sunday Mail (10/9), which quoted the Motor Trade Association calling on its members to "adhere to the petroleum product prices Government and private oil companies recently agreed on", the rest of the stories did not seek comment from the banks and fuel dealers.

It was against this background that none of the stories adequately reported the impact of government’s decision to control fuel prices on the availability of the commodity. For example, the Chronicle (7/9) unquestioningly reported that "cheaper fuel from the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe is now available" following the disbursement of 10,000 litres per each province without seeking to discover whether this was adequate.

Instead, The Herald (4/9) commended government for "introducing cheap fuel that is being consistently supplied to service stations" saying it showed it "has the plight of the people at heart".

The papers’ buoyant mood seemed to contradict threats by Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono against banks that were allegedly giving fuel dealers foreign currency at the unofficial rate, saying this had resulted in the dealers failing to provide fuel at gazetted prices (The Herald 5/9 and ZTV 5/9,8pm).

Moreover, ZBH failed to reconcile government’s directive to fuel dealers to sell the commodity at the gazetted prices with bus operators’ contention that the availability of ‘cheap’ fuel was erratic, forcing them to source it from the parallel market.

The official media’s reluctance to openly discuss government’s culpability in the country’s economic mess also manifested itself in 35 stories they carried on other indicators of economic collapse such as commodity shortages and galloping price hikes. Typically, the reports merely highlighted the indicators in isolation of government policies. It was in this context that The Herald (7/9) buried in its business section the announcement in the rise of cost of living for a family of six from about $76 000 in July to $96 000 in August. ZTV (7/9, 7am) did not even report the matter; it merely carried news of this massive increase in its news bar.

Although the government media’s sourcing pattern appeared diverse as shown in Fig 1, their reports remained uncritical.

Fig 1 Voice distribution on ZBH

Notably, most of the voices ZBH quoted expressed their concern about the deteriorating economic conditions or, as in the case of ordinary people, generally blaming them on businesses.

Fig 2 Voice distribution in the government Press

The private media were forthright in their analysis of the economy’s precarious state in the 28 stories they carried on the subject.

Private papers published 20 reports while the private media carried eight.

They noted that contrary to claims by the official media that government’s economic strategies were paying dividends, the country’s economic future remained bleak. Besides, they carried several stories on indicators of economic decline, which they viewed as symptomatic of government’s failed policies. The Zimbabwe Independent (8/9), for example, pointed out that while the central bank had paraded its monetary reforms as "heralding the dawn of a new era", inflationary pressures remained "relentlessly entrenched in the country’s beleaguered economy." It quoted analysts projecting that although inflation had dropped to below 1,000 % it would soon return to previous record highs because of spiralling commodity prices.

Earlier, Studio 7 (6/9), The Financial Gazette and The Daily Mirror (7/9) revealed that bakers were planning to increase the price of bread from $200 to $385 due to rising input costs and erratic supply of wheat by the GMB.

The private Press’ critical approach was mirrored by its attempts to balance official comment with independent views.

Fig 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

Fig 4 Voice distribution in the private electronic media

Visit the MMPZ fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP