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Economy and corruption
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2006-47
Monday November 20th 2006 - Sunday November 26th 2006

THE official media continued to bury the extent of the country’s economic decline and its actual causes in stories that projected government’s economic turnaround strategies as paying dividends.

For example, 85% of the 40 stories the official Press carried on the economy were glowing reports on measures the authorities were taking to address the country’s haemorrhaging economy. The remaining six narrowly blamed corruption for the country’s economic distress, characterised by the galloping cost of living, commodity shortages, decaying infrastructure and poor service delivery.

But instead of interpreting these issues in light of government’s mismanagement record, the papers simply presented the authorities as working tirelessly to clean up the mess.

The Herald (20/11), for example, unquestioningly revealed that government would renew its US$50 million fuel deal with French bank BNP Paribas "as it battles to address the fuel woes dogging the country".

No attempt was made to probe the source of the funds or discuss the quantity of fuel to be procured under the facility in relation to the country’s requirements.

Likewise, The Sunday Mail (26/11) merely announced – without analysis - that the authorities had struck deals with Russian and Iranian companies to build power plants in their efforts to boost the country’s ailing capacity to generate electricity.

ZBH was no different in its 38 stories on the topic.

It highlighted symptoms of economic decline in isolation of government policies and passively allowed officials to narrowly blame business for the economic chaos while defending their turn-around strategies.

For example, Spot FM and ZTV (22/11, 8pm) allowed Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa to blame business for commodity shortages saying his 2007 budget, which would be premised on a "promising agricultural season" would "deal with unscrupulous business people who create artificial shortages" without explaining how.

ZTV also simply granted Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono carte blanche to present a deceitful defence of the printing of money as a "necessary evil" that would lay "the basis for stability and recovery for future generations". The negative ramifications of such policies on the country’s struggling economy were utterly ignored.

The official media’s reluctance to examine the authorities’ policy deficiencies complemented their efforts to promote government measures as an antidote for the ailing economy.

It was against this background that The Herald and Chronicle (20/11) passively reported Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe official David Govere claiming that the country’s economy "would recover" next year because of the government’s NEDPP and stakeholders’ "unprecedented determination to rectify macro-economic fundamentals…"

The government papers’ biased coverage in defence of government policies was illustrated by their dependence on official voices as shown in Fig 1.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution in the government Press

Although ZBH’s sourcing pattern appeared fairly balanced as shown in Fig 2, the views raised by its commentators were either buried in official pronouncements or used to endorse government policies.

Fig. 2 Voice distribution on ZBH

The private media remained candid about the country’s gloomy economic outlook and its root causes in the 55 stories they carried on the subject. Of these, 50 appeared in the private papers and five in the private electronic media.

The stories reported news of commodity shortages, price increases, the drastic decline in industrial productivity, mismanagement of state-owned enterprises, crippling forex shortages and the continued weakening value of the local currency.

In one of the stories, The Daily Mirror (20/11) revealed that several companies in the manufacturing sector were "operating at below 10% capacity", adding that Olivine Industries had "ceased the production of cooking oil owing to the unavailability of raw materials".

SW Radio Africa (22/11) and The Financial Gazette (23/11) quoted economists and business attributing such problems and commodity shortages to government’s failed economic policies.

In fact, the Gazette noted that the much-publicized NEDPP was "heading for the dustbin" as government was now "drafting its successor". It quoted economists saying the crafting of another economic blueprint was not only "an admission of failure to fix the crisis by the government" but demonstrated "confusion" surrounding the country’s economic management.

The Zimbabwe Independent concurred, noting that NEDPP had "missed almost all of its targets".

As further evidence of government’s failed policies, Studio 7 (24/11) quoted economist John Robertson warning that the local currency would slide to US$1:ZW$4000 by end of December and "plummet to $18,000 by end of 2007" on the parallel market "unless the government institutes bold economic and political reforms".

The Gazette and Independent also followed up on the alleged plundering of state enterprises by government officials.

While the Gazette provided more details on the alleged involvement of Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo in the ZUPCO scandal, the Independent announced that Parliament intended to summon government officials implicated in the pillaging of Ziscosteel (Zisco) to "explain themselves".

Although the official media referred to these issues, all six corruption stories either projected government as committed to stemming graft, or simply reported on the official dismissal of allegations of corruption by the authorities.

The private media’s critical assessment of the country’s continuing economic crisis was reflected by the private papers’ attempts to balance official voices with comments from those outside government. See Fig 3.

Fig 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

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