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Collapse in service delivery
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-18
Monday May 7th 2007 - Sunday May 13th 2007

THIS week the government media failed to adequately cover indicators of the collapse in service delivery such as the crippling shortages of water and power, the very basic necessities of civilized life. All their 66 stories on the topic (ZBC [44] and government Press [22]) failed to adequately discuss the extent of the collapse, its root causes and socio-economic impact on the country. Otherwise, they simply regurgitated official pronouncements that projected the authorities as taking measures to address the crises.

For example, Spot FM (8/5, 8pm), The Herald and Chronicle (9/5) failed to ask the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) why it was punishing ordinary Zimbabweans for its failure to generate sufficient electricity for the country's needs following its decision to severely limit power supplies to urban households for the next three months to support winter wheat irrigation. Neither did they reconcile ZESA's failure to meet national electricity requirements with several deals government had allegedly clinched with various countries to boost power generation.

Instead, they simply quoted ZESA chief executive officer Ben Rafemoyo justifying the looming three-month load-shedding for urban households as being done for "a worthy cause" aimed at keeping "our industries and agricultural sector ticking".

There was no assessment of its negative effects on industry and ordinary people, which are already suffering incessant power cuts. ZTV (9/5, 8pm) passively reported Rafemoyo papering over these issues claiming his company would "source investment for electricity generation".

He was not asked to elaborate.

Similarly, The Herald (10/5) was seemingly apologetic on behalf of ZESA. Its reporter, Victoria Ruzvidzo, "hoped" that the parastatal would rehabilitate its ageing power infrastructure and build more plants to increase power generation. Without explaining why the company had to wait for a crisis to act, she expressed optimism that the energy deal Zimbabwe recently signed with Namibia "will begin to bear fruit soon". In fact, The Herald and Chronicle failed to take ZESA to task over its confusing stance on the frequency of the load-shedding. While they passively reported Rafemoyo saying domestic consumers will be "disconnected from 9pm and reconnected at 5pm the following day leaving them with four hours' supply a day", (9/5) the next day they reported ZESA retracting this statement, announcing that households will only be cut for four hours from "5pm to 9pm" on a rotational basis.

No reasons were given for the sudden revision.

Such professional ineptitude was also apparent in the government media's coverage of water shortages bedeviling the country's urban centres. All their stories on the matter avoided giving a holistic picture of the crisis and passively reported the authorities assuring a return to normalcy. The scale of human suffering caused by the shortages remained untold. Neither did they reconcile the water crisis with previous parliamentary observations that the government-run Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) lacked the capacity to manage water distribution in the country.

For example, Spot FM (7/5, 8pm) passively reported Water Resources Minister Munacho Mutezo blaming the water shortages on Zinwa's inefficiency and masking government's culpability by projecting the authority as independent of government.

Equally, The Herald (10/5) did not question how the setting up of "a temporary office" at Zinwa headquarters by his ministry would translate into improved water supplies in Harare. Neither did it (11/5) investigate the adequacy of the central bank's $87 billion grant to Zinwa, which was expected to see "water delivery in Harare . . . improve significantly within the next 90 days". Instead, the paper (8/5) allowed Mutezo to weave conspiracies on the matter. It quoted him accusing some Zinwa officials of "sabotaging water distribution in the city", a development he said had resulted in the suspension of the authority's director, Douglas Kagoro. ZTV and Spot FM (7&9/5, 8pm) also gave prominence to similar allegations by Mutezo and his deputy Walter Mzembi while burying pertinent revelations that Harare's water works were "operating at 1% capacity" and that "raw sewage" was being discharged into the capital's water sources.

Notably, none of these media verified the ministers' alleged conspiracies.

And even though The Herald (10/5) and Radio Zimbabwe (10/5, 1pm) warned of a health hazard in Marondera where raw sewage was reportedly flowing into the town's remaining source of water, Rufaro Dam, there was no attempt to link this with the authorities' failure to manage water supply and distribution. Instead, The Herald passively reported Zinwa as "allegedly blending water from the sewage-infested Rufaro Dam with the meagre supplies left in Nyambuya Dam".

The government media's dependence on official statements was mirrored by their sourcing patterns as shown in Figs 1 and 2.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution on ZBC

Notably, although ZBC gave significant space to members of the public, their concerns on the deteriorating services were drowned in stories that depicted government as addressing the problems.

Fig. 2 Voice distribution in the government Press

Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa were no better. They each carried a story apiece on the power shortages, which were narrowly premised on MDC's views on the matter, and ignored the water crisis and other symptoms of collapsing infrastructure. Although the other private media were reticent on poor service delivery, the 10 stories they carried on the matter (private Press [8] and online agencies [2]) were more analytical. The Standard, for example, quoted business people observing that power cuts "had made planning difficult, adding that they had suffered heavy losses", particularly those selling perishables such as "fruits, milk . . . and meat".

The Independent criticised ZESA's proposed load-shedding, which it blamed on "lack of . . . planning despite warnings so many years back of a regional power deficit", while the Zimbabwe Times criticised The Herald (9/5) for presenting access to water as a privilege when the shortages were basically a "shrinkage in our basic rights".

Although the private papers paid lip service to the country's water problems, they carried five stories highlighting disintegrating service delivery in the education and health sectors. For instance, The Standard reported infrastructure at the University of Zimbabwe as collapsing saying "the toilets have been blocked for weeks".

The private Press' open coverage of the matter was mirrored by their balanced sourcing pattern as captured in Fig 3.

Fig 3.Voice distribution in the private Press

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