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Fiscal policy review
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-35
Monday September 3rd - Sunday September 9th 2007
September 13, 2007

The government media failed to provide any informed analysis on the essence of government's supplementary budget in the 62 reports they carried on the matter: ZBC (43) and government papers (19). They played down the supplementary nature of the budget that is a legal requirement to approve additional, unforeseen government spending. As a result, they failed to categorically link the budget to unbridled government overspending and did not explore the causes for this.

Neither did the government media mention, let alone clarify to its audiences, that the supplementary budget was nearly eight times bigger than the original one, a clear indication that the authorities were no longer in control of their spending or the economy.

These media failed to reconcile their previews featuring business, workers and ordinary people as being optimistic that the budget would revive the economy, improve disposable incomes and address the severe shortage of commodities with what the budget eventually offered. In fact, after the budget presentation the government media continued to portray the budget as a panacea to the country's economic ills, but never went back to the workers to find out whether their expectations had been met. Neither did they carry independent verification about whether the new tax-free threshold of $4m announced by Finance Minister Samuel Mumbengegwi would cushion the country's diminishing workforce from the plague of hyperinflation.

They also failed to measure the adequacy of the authorities' devaluation of the local dollar from 250 to 30,000 to the US dollar, considering that parallel market rates were fetching up to eight times more.

Instead, they diverted attention from these important questions with simplistic reports that either repeated Mumbengegwi's presentation, or rhetorically welcomed it as being "people-centred" without qualification (The Herald and Chronicle 7/9). Such passive coverage also manifested itself in reports in The Herald and Chronicle (7/9) and on Spot FM's morning news bulletin (7/9) that the $37.1 trillion budget fell short of the $225 trillion that government ministries had requested. They did not view this as a sign of hyperinflation, nor questioned how the deficit would be managed. Instead, ZBC's reporter Douglas Rinomhota merely editorialised: "It was a delicate balancing act by the Finance Minister as he sought to curb inflation [and] at the same time boosting production in the economy" (Spot FM, 7/9, 8am).

Critical comments on the budget by analysts accessed by these media were largely suffocated. For example, the official dailies (7/9) muted observations by economist Luxon Zembe that the untaxed income and the dollar's devaluation were too little with positive comments from former Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa and a University of Zimbabwe lecturer. Spot FM (7/9, 8am) adopted the same stance, relegating Zembe's reservations to story seven in the eight-item news bulletin.

Although the official media's sourcing pattern seemed relatively balanced (Fig 1&2), it belied the superficial manner in which they reported the topic.

Fig 1: Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the government Press

In contrast, the private media critically assessed Mumbengegwi's budget in the 23 reports they carried on the topic. Of these, 12 were carried by the private electronic media and 11 by private papers. They questioned the effectiveness of the budget, which they largely presented as a non-event. In addition, they highlighted the inadequacy of the new untaxed income; the extreme mismatch between official and parallel market exchange rates; and government's failure to satisfy its own appetite for cash. While the Zimbabwe Independent (7/9), questioned how government intended to close the "yawning chasm" between the budget and expenditure requests by government departments, ZimOnline (10/9) cited analysts saying the demands reflected the seriousness of Zimbabwe's economic rot and raised grave questions over official inflation data.

Economist John Robertson described the demands as "frightening when you compare them to the original budget estimates for 2007". Contrary to government media's unsubstantiated claims that workers welcomed the budget, Studio 7, ZimOnline (6/9) and the Independent accessed comments from workers' organizations criticising the budget, especially the inadequate level of the tax-free threshold. The Standard (9/9) concurred, noting that the tax relief was "something of a pyrrhic victory" for ordinary workers as government had announced a 20% increase in the prices of some goods and services.

The sourcing patterns of the private media are shown in Figs. 3 and 4.

Fig 3: Voice distribution in the private electronic media

Fig 4: Voice distribution in the private Press

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