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Economy and confusion
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-49
Monday December 4th 2006 - December 10th 2006

THIS week the official media evaded addressing the confusion and policy contradictions characterising government's management of the country's ailing economy. Most of the 42 stories they carried on the matter and related developments (ZBC [34] and government papers [8]) just papered over the administrative mess with simplistic positive projections of a recovering economy.

This was evident in the way they rehashed conflicting official pronouncements on the quasi-fiscal role of the central bank, the re-licensing of money transfer agencies, and the extension of the National Economic Development Priority Programme (NEDPP) without question. As a result, there was no interpretation on the implications of such policy differences on the economy.

For example, The Herald (5/12) failed to reconcile Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa's condemnation of the Reserve Bank's "quasi-fiscal operations" in his Budget speech with President Mugabe's defence of the bank's activities. The paper and its Bulawayo-based sister publication, the Chronicle (5/12) merely reported Mugabe contradicting Murerwa: "I don't believe in this nonsensical theory about quasi-fiscal activities", adding that the country "must not rely on textbook economics to push its development agenda".

There were more surprises at the weekend when Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono took the unprecedented measure of publishing a multi-page supplement in all the Sunday newspapers defending the bank's activities. The supplement vehemently condemned government's profligate spending and made use of numerous confidential inter-ministerial memos as evidence that the bank's financing of government programmes outside the provisions of the Budget was actually a result of specific instructions from Murerwa and in some instances from Cabinet. It noted that the bank had only been responding to its obligations to fulfil directives issued by government ministries.

However, The Sunday Mail (10/12) deliberately censored any attempt at analysing this extraordinary outburst, providing the clearest indication yet of the warfare between the Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank. Instead, the paper limited itself to reporting Gono defending his bank's activities on the basis that there were "capacity constraints at parent ministry . . . parastatal or local authority levels" saying some of the country's "landmark events . . . would not have taken place" without the bank's support.

ZBC steered clear of this glaring indicator of the confusion characterizing government's economic management.

Instead, it reserved its energies to reporting favourably on government's economic programmes, slavishly quoting government officials' utterances without question. Undesirable economic developments were attributed to "illegal" sanctions and "unscrupulous" business people. For example, most of the analysts evaluating the Budget aired on ZBC were those that generally endorsed it. Those that offered contrary views were barely heard.

For instance, while Spot FM (6/12, 8am) and ZTV (10/12, 8pm) prominently reported economists and ZANU PF legislators celebrating the Budget, MDC MP Tendai Biti's argument that the fiscal policy was repetitious, mediocre and lacked creativity was suppressed and only accommodated at the end of their bulletins. Also, there was no querying government's fickle policy on Money Transfer Agencies (MTAs). This follows a government decision to re-register seven agencies that it abruptly closed two months ago following alleged "non-performance, non-compliance with the exchange rate and control regulations" (Spot FM 4/12, 1pm). The Chronicle (5/12) simply reported economists hailing the move saying it "may boost foreign currency inflows" as the MTAs closure "was not really a wise move" since it fuelled the foreign currency black market.

The government media also failed to address the basis on which government planned to extend the lifespan of NEDPP from December 2006 to March 31 2007 or link it to its chaotic implementation of policies. The Herald (5/12), ZTV and Spot FM (7/12, 8pm) passively cited the authorities using the programme's extension as evidence of its success. The Herald passively quoted an unnamed government official claiming that although NEDPP had not met some of its targets, it "has not failed." Similarly, ZTV and Spot FM reported the Minister of Economic Development claiming that NEDPP had "registered success" and government was satisfied "that some economic challenges were fixed through the quick-fix solution". The minister did not provide the public with any of NEDPP's successes nor was he asked to. Moreover, these media did not explain how the extension of NEDPP fitted in with government's announcement the previous week that it was now "finalising the new medium-term economic blueprint" dubbed the Zimbabwe Economic Development Strategy.

In fact, despite an earlier report in The Herald (6/12) revealing that $715 million allocated by Murerwa to the Prices and Incomes Stabilisation Programme was six times short of the total requirement, The Sunday Mail (10/12) presented the allocation as adequate and indicative of government commitment to "deal with price increases".

The official media's shallow coverage of the economy was mirrored by their dependence on official voices as captured in Fig. 1 and 2.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig. 2 Voice distribution in the government Press

The private media also failed to holistically examine government's policy confusion, especially in the wake of Mugabe's criticism of his Finance Minister and to a lesser extent Gono's defence of his bank's activities. However, the 62 stories they carried on the economy (private papers [45] and private electronic media [17]) were generally critical of the authorities' management of the economy. Of these, 12 mainly discussed the RBZ's quasi-fiscal operations while the rest focussed on symptoms of economic distress.

For example, while The Financial Gazette (7/12) noted that Mugabe's criticism of Murerwa was "against broad support" the Finance Minister had received in his efforts to put an end to the Reserve Bank's interventions, it did not discuss the matter in the context of the authorities' policy contradictions. Similarly, the Zimbabwe Independent's comment (8/12) only doubted whether Gono would stop his quasi-fiscal activities, which it claimed, were a "major source of (his) political power", while its Muckraker columnist wondered why Murerwa "doesn't quit" when he had been told "to go and hang".

The Standard (10/12) did attempt to follow-up the 16-page Reserve Bank supplement that appeared in its own paper by quoting Murerwa confirming he had authorised the central bank's spending. But it failed to give its readers a proper understanding of the unprecedented nature of the dispute and how this matched up with Mugabe's attack on Murerwa.

The private electronic media largely ignored these issues. Most of their stories were restricted to debating the Budget and highlighting indicators of economic decline such as dwindling industrial production, commodity shortages and skyrocketing price increases.

The private media's critical examination of the country's economic problems was reflected by their attempts to balance official comment with alternative views as shown in Fig. 3 and 4.

Fig. 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

Fig. 4 Voice distribution in the private electronic media

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