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Policy conflicts and confusion
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2007-6
Monday February 12^th 2007 – Sunday February 18^th 2007

ALTHOUGH the government media carried several stories that reflected conflicting government policies and confusion in the authorities management of the country, they presented them as normal.

These included the conflict surrounding the planned takeover of Bulawayo’s water reticulation by Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) and the contradictions characterising government’s pricing policies.

However, except for the Chronicle’s extensive coverage of the planned takeover of Bulawayo’s water, the rest of the government media largely avoided the matter. Even then, the official daily failed to investigate what law allowed Zinwa to take over the administration of Bulawayo’s water.

Such professional ineptitude was more pronounced in the official media’s coverage of government’s price controls.

For example, they did not query the criteria the authorities were using to arrest private business executives for allegedly increasing prices of their products while turning a blind eye to similar practices by government-run enterprises.

Instead, ZTV (14/2, 8pm) and The Herald (16/2) passively announced that government had sanctioned the sharp increase in the price of maize the GMB sells to millers from $600 per tonne to $58,000 without analysis.

Neither did Spot FM (15/2, 8pm) query why government had approved price hikes by ZESA and the National Railways while denying the private sector the same opportunity.

Similarly, The Herald (16/2) did not discuss the effects of Mugabe’s continued policy interference in the running of the Ministry of Finance. It simply quoted him: “I don’t want policy view yecaution yanga iri kuFinance (I don’t want the cautious policy view that was being implemented in the Finance Ministry). It’s a disastrous policy.”

Neither did it view his statement as an endorsement of the Reserve Bank’s quasi-fiscal operations, which former Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa and economists have deplored as one of the causes of the country’s economic distress.

It is against this background that The Herald (15/2) and ZBC (15/2, 8pm) failed to interpret government’s “freeze” on ZBC’s steep increase in TV/Radio licence fees as symptomatic of policy confusion that characterises the authorities’ administration of the country. 

Their uncritical approach was mirrored by their reliance on official voices as shown in the government papers’ sourcing pattern. See Fig 1.

Fig 1.Voice distribution in the government Press

The private media were better.

Although they also failed to explain under what authority Zinwa was imposing itself on Bulawayo City Council, they were critical of the implications of government’s conflicting policies.

SW Radio Africa (15/02), for example, reported MDC official Eddie Cross criticising government for “arresting people for increasing prices” while its “own companies are allowed to do so without any hassle.”

The Zimbabwe Independent agreed. It questioned the prudence of government’s recommendation for stiffer pricing penalties for businesses, noting that the authorities’ preoccupation with controlling prices without “paying attention to production and sustainability of the enterprise” was “short-sighted in the extreme”.

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