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Mahoso should be hauled before Parliament
Nyasha Nyakunu, MISA-Zimbabwe
Extracted from Monthly Alerts Digest September 2006
October 10, 2006

The shock and anger was palpable as members of a parliamentary portfolio committee came face to face with the shenanigans of the executive chairman of the government-controlled Media and Information Commission (MIC), Dr Tafataona Mahoso.

This came against the backdrop of an MIC statement published in The Herald on 29 September 2006 condemning a two-day workshop with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications on media law reforms organised by the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ).

MIC branded the organisers of the workshop, MISA-Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) and Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) which constitute MAZ, "regime change activists".

In its statement the MIC claimed that the workshop which opened in Harare on 29 September was aimed at creating a "stilted platform from which the activists may engage in an orgy of anti-Zimbabwe diatribe intended to coincide with other recently staged events".

As far as members of the Committee who attended the workshop were concerned, judging from their verbal and body language, Dr Mahoso had this time round crossed the Rubicon by attacking and condemning a meeting to which they had agreed to attend as Representatives of the House of Assembly and Senate.

The Committee comprises lawmakers drawn from the governing party and two opposition parties and is chaired by Leo Mugabe who was elected on a ruling Zanu PF ticket.

While the private media and civic society organisations have generally developed elephant skins and dismissed Mahoso’s recent but relentless vitriol branding them agents of imperialism as not worthy of any immediate response, the Committee which was led by Mugabe during the workshop, was not amused by Dr Mahoso’s theatrics and melodramatics.

They saw red and could still be seeing no other colour unless and until Dr Mahoso is made to account for his statements - which they vowed they would see to it.

Eight members of the Committee were in attendance and actively participated in the discussions which among other issues, focused on the functions of the Committee and its role in protecting freedom of expression, challenges associated with accessing public information, the state of the media in Zimbabwe and the need for media law reforms.

The MIC chairman was invited to the workshop but chose to announce his decline from attending through the newspaper by launching a massive diatribe against the organisers much to the chagrin of the Committee.

In a statement the MIC attacked and condemned MAZ for misrepresenting to Government the nature and purpose of the conference.

Conceding that the MIC had been invited to the workshop, the statutory media regulatory body proceeded to attack the meeting as a "foreign-sponsored exercise" disguised as a Zimbabwean media law reform workshop.

Assuming the role of government spokesperson and that of the Ministry of Information in particular, the MIC claimed that it had been misled into believing that MAZ had invited the Acting Minister Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana when in fact the Minister and the Secretary George Charamba, knew nothing about the meeting.

"The real purpose of the media law reform workshop is to create a stilted platform from which the activists (MAZ) may engage in an orgy of anti-Zimbabwe diatribe intended to coincide with other recently staged events," said MIC in its statement.

It further claimed that the three media organisations were involved in convening clandestine conferences, (ironically to which MIC and Parliament are invited), under the guise of media law reforms.

The Acting Minister of Information was in fact invited to the workshop well in advance of the meeting.

It can only be speculated that the MIC’s sinister motive was to scuttle the meeting which discussed among other contentious laws, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act – Dr Mahoso’s very lifeblood without which the statutory Commission which he chairs, would not have come into being.

While members of MAZ can only speculate on the intentions of the statement, the same cannot be said about the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications. The Committee has the powers to demand an explanation from Dr Mahoso for they stand accused of being lured to a meeting aimed at engaging in an "orgy of anti-Zimbabwe diatribe".

The Committee should therefore haul the MIC chairman to appear before them as he might have valuable intelligence on the exact nature and agenda of the meeting which was held under the "guise" of discussing media law reforms.

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