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Economic decline
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-39
Monday October 1st - Sunday October 7th 2007
October 11, 2007

The government media poorly informed their audiences on the economic problems bedevilling the country despite the 64 stories they carried on the matter: ZBC (34) and government papers (30). Nothing demonstrated this better than their blackout of the strikes by teachers, lecturers and doctors. ZTV (1/10, 8pm) for example, cursorily referred to the teachers' strike only within the context of President Mugabe's address to ZANU PF supporters on his return from the UN Assembly in New York. The irony appeared lost on the station's reporter, Judith Makwanya, who merely reported: "Turning to the ongoing strike by teachers . . . Mugabe said negotiations should be held with urgency with teachers' unions to resolve the problem . . . "

Government papers followed suit with The Herald and Chronicle (4/10) only informing their audiences of the strike after the Zimbabwe Teachers' Association (Zimta) had allegedly "called it off" after its negotiations with government. The next day, the Chronicle approvingly reported on how government had increased the civil servants' salaries by 422 percent, "following President Mugabe's assurances" that government would review their grievances without examining the adequacy of the pay rise, which reportedly would see the lowest paid teacher receiving $12million a month, up from $2.6million. The paper simply used comments of two unnamed teachers: One "welcoming" it and the other who dismissed it as "too low".

Although the government media carried several stories highlighting other indicators of economic decline, these were piecemeal and blamed only those outside official circles for the problems. For example, they continued to blame industry for the new spate of price increases. It was against this background that ZBC (all evening bulletins 1/10) and the official dailies (2/10) just regurgitated Mugabe's threats that "profiteering businesses" risked government takeover if they did not stick to gazetted prices. No effort was made to clarify what goods remained controlled. The government dailies simply alleged that Mugabe's warning came "in the wake of the emergence . . . of the price madness" that forced government to introduce price controls in June.

The Chronicle (5/10) story: "Price madness is back" reinforced the same notion.

The official media did not reconcile their criticism of industry for hiking prices with the fact that government-run enterprises like the Zimbabwe National Water Authority had done the same (The Herald 2/10). Neither did The Herald (4/10) and ZTV (4/10, 8pm) examine the relevance of government's proposed new economic plan, the Zimbabwe Development Economic Plan (ZEDS), to be launched next year. They merely reported it as designed to address the country's economic "challenges" without saying how it would do this. Moreover, there was no attempt to relate ZEDS to previous economic packages such as NEDPP, and how these had fared. The voice patterns of the government media are shown in Figs 5 and 6.

Fig 5: Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig 6: Voice distribution in the government Press

In contrast, the private media carried 46 reports that openly discussed the economic decline, which they categorically attributed to government's poor policies. Of these, 26 were aired by the private electronic media while the rest were carried by the private Press. Besides capturing the widespread agitation among mostly government workers over poor salaries, the private media also reported on the inadequacy of the pay rises for teachers. For example, The Financial Gazette (4/10) and The Standard (7/10), noted that the increase was still below the poverty datum line of $16,7 million. In fact, The Standard reported a go-slow by university lecturers, said to be demanding a minimum monthly salary of $150 million, failure of which they would embark on a "full blown" strike after two weeks. In the same vein, the Zimbabwe Times (6/10) reported teachers as having "vowed to end the week-long strike [only] if the promised money is deposited into their bank accounts".

The private media also exposed the extent of the decline in the performance of parastatals like Air Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA).

The Gazette revealed that Air Zimbabwe had recorded a US$12,7 million loss during the first six months of the year, due to "massive debts", shortages of fuel and spare parts and "a torrent of bad publicity" while The Standard reported that regional power utilities had reduced supplies to ZESA over non-payment of tariffs for a period of six months. Reportedly, the company's group chief executive officer Ben Rafemoyo told a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee that the parastatal owed regional suppliers US$42 million.

The Zimbabwe Times (4/10) reported that government had "mortgaged Bindura Nickel Mine to guarantee a US$200m fuel facility", a development described by MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa as a "hallmark of economic mismanagement". And as the week ended, The Standard quoted several people, including chiefs, ruling party, government and opposition officials dismissing ZEDS, saying it would "suffer the fate of its predecessor policies" if it did not "embrace the views of people". The private Press' broad coverage of the subject was mirrored in their wide use of alternative opinions as shown in their sourcing patterns (Figs 7 and 8).

Fig 7: Voice distribution in the private electronic media

Fig 8: Voice distribution in private Press

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