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Infrastructural decline
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-2
Monday January 15th 2007 – Sunday January 21st 2007

THIS week all the media highlighted symptoms of the country's infrastructural decline characterised by water and power shortages, the crumbling Harare sewerage system and problems bedeviling the judiciary and the administration of justice. The electronic media carried 66 stories on these issues, nine of which appeared in the private electronic media while ZBC aired 57. The Press devoted 44 stories to the subject. Of these, 28 featured in the government papers while 16 were in the private Press.

However, while the private media generally linked the crumbling infrastructure to the authorities' poor administration of the country, the official media reported the issues as spontaneous developments beyond government's control. For example, Spot FM and Radio Zimbabwe, (15/1, 8am &17/1, 1pm) passively reported that "raw effluent" was being "discharged daily" into Harare's main water source, Lake Chivero, due to a breakdown at the city's major sewage treatment plant. There was no discussion on the serious health threat this represented to the capital's residents.

Instead, Spot FM merely reported the authorities as taking measures to address the problem. It quoted Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) chairman Willie Muringani saying the authority would "ensure that everything (the sewage plant) was being rehabilitated". He was not asked when exactly this would be completed.

Similarly, The Herald (15/1) did not show any curiosity as to why the authorities had allowed the sewage plant, Firle, to deteriorate unchecked or to seek expert advice on the extent of the dangers posed by the massive discharge of untreated sewage. Rather, it only quoted the officer in charge of the plant, Simon Muserere, telling Muringani that discharging the effluent into the Mukuvisi River was "equivalent to using the river as a public toilet" and posed a serious health hazard to Harare's major water source downstream.

Despite reporting Muserere further disclosing that Harare had five other sewage plants and several pump stations that were either malfunctioning or discharging raw sewage into rivers and streams across the city, it did not identify the water bodies or quantify the severity of the pollution.

Such passive reporting epitomised the rest of the 10 stories the government Press carried on the subject and other related matters. For example, The Herald (17/1) failed to quiz Infrastructural Development Minister Munacho Mutezo on when government would release money for the repairs at Firle. Instead, the paper only reported him bemoaning the non-payment of sewage tariffs by at least 1,115 Harare companies, which he also accused of "corroding" the "water and sewer utility" by "discharging untreated trade waste" into the capital's sewage system. He was not asked why Zinwa had not taken action against them.

The official media's failure to take government to task over the crumbling infrastructure resulted in ZBC trying to conceal the scale of Harare's water woes. For example, despite announcing (ZTV and Spot FM 16/1, 8pm) that Zinwa had reintroduced water rationing in Harare due to the shortage of water treatment chemicals, Spot FM (17/1, 8am) still claimed the water authority's policies had "improved water supplies" in the capital. To make matters worse, it deceitfully presented the shortages as confined to a few Harare suburbs (20/1, 8am), when several other areas have also been severely affected.

No attempt was made to link Zinwa's failure to address Harare's water problems to its planned takeover of water reticulation in the water crisis-ridden city of Bulawayo.

Such professional ineptitude was also apparent in the official media's coverage of the country's current power problems and the projected regional electricity shortages.

Spot FM (16/1, 8am), for example, tried to downplay the gravity of the matter by unquestioningly reporting Zimbabwe Electricity Regulatory Commission chairperson Mavis Chidzonga claiming that the country was "ready" for the looming power shortages. She was not asked to elaborate, nor did the station reconcile her claims with government's failure to rehabilitate the country's crumbling power infrastructure.

Likewise, the government Press' eight stories on the issue evaded tackling government's culpability in the country's power woes by narrowly attributing them to high demand, theft and vandalism of electricity cables.

However, unlike ZBC, which suffocated the matter, The Herald and Chronicle (16/1) openly reported Judge President Rita Makarau's disclosure that the judiciary and the administration of justice was in a "shambles" due to a lack of financial support from government.So did the private media.

In fact, besides publicising Makarau's statements, they carried other stories depicting the judiciary as having been politically corrupted by the authorities. For example, the Zimbabwe Independent carried an opinion piece by MDC justice spokesman David Coltart claiming that the justice system had been used since 2000 "as a weapon against legitimate democratic opposition".

The private media's critical approach basically manifested itself in most of the 25 stories they carried on the infrastructural decline.

The Mirror stable, for example, did not only highlight the severe pollution of Harare's water sources, but also criticised Zinwa's failure to clean up the capital's reservoirs.

The Daily Mirror (15/1) queried why only two of Harare's 27 reservoirs had been cleaned in five years and demanded to know how well the dams and pipes carrying the capital's drinking water had been maintained. It was in this context that the paper questioned the cause of the "numerous reports of dysentery in the city" last year, which it said, "no one owned up to its origins".

Besides, the Mirror (17/1), Financial Gazette (18/1) and The Standard (21/1) reported Bulawayo City Council and ZANU PF officials expressing doubts over Zinwa's capacity to provide water and treat sewage effectively. The Daily Mirror, for instance, reported the ruling party officials as lobbying Bulawayo residents to resist Zinwa's moves to take over the city's sewage treatment and water reticulation system from the municipality on the basis that the authority had "messed up" in Harare.

Pelandaba/Mpopoma MDC Senator Greenfield Nyoni concurred: "In Harare, the sewer and water situation is even worse than when the city council was still in charge of those functions."

As if to buttress such arguments, the online agency, New Zimbabwe.com (18/1) revealed that the Auditor-General Mildred Chiri had noted that Zinwa had "no capacity to provide Harare with clean water" because it was already failing to supply "undisrupted water . . . of high quality to . . . small towns, growth points and institutional customers".

Earlier, Studio 7 (18/1) dismissed Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo's attempts to attribute poor service delivery to some "politicians" who were "interfering with municipal authorities". It quoted MDC local government secretary Trudy Stevenson saying it was actually the minister's unwarranted meddling in the administration of cities that was the source of the problems besetting towns.

Although there was a gap in the manner in which the media tackled the crumbling infrastructure, the private papers and the government media all gave more space to official voices as reflected in their sourcing patterns.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution in the government Press

Fig. 2 Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig. 3 Voice distribution in private papers

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