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Economic collapse
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-48
Monday, December 3 - Sunday, December 9, 2007
December 13, 2007

The government media continued to carry piecemeal reports of Zimbabwe's intensifying economic crisis. But while the press focussed mainly on finding blame for the nation's increasing distress, this was largely absent from ZBC's monitored bulletins. In fact ZBC's 14 stories avoided discussing the country's economic crisis and passively reported increases in transport fares and concerns over the continuing cash shortages without exploring their causes or how they would be addressed. ZTV (6/12, 6pm) and Spot FM (3/12, 1pm) reported commuters calling on the transport sector "to stop raising fares at will and without justification."

But both stations merely quoted Information Minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, calling for dialogue between government and commuter operators. No attempt was made to question Ndlovu about the crisis, or link the increases to the continued collapse in the value of the local dollar. Nor did they make an effort to seek comment from economists, fuel importers or even commuter operators.

This superficial reporting also characterized ZBC's coverage of crippling cash shortages, which has so badly affected the public's ability to access their money. Although ZTV (5/12, 8pm) and Spot FM (6/12, 8am) continued to highlight business concerns about the shortages, the stations merely announced that the imminent launch of a new currency had failed to "stimulate cash deposits". No effort was made to seek Reserve Bank comment about the crisis or the launch of the new currency.

The government papers, meanwhile, focussed on passively reporting government officials accusing the business community of "sabotaging" the economy by increasing prices and creating shortages. Their 52 reports on the topic also passively quoted government officials threatening the business sector without attempting to question the implications of these threats to production and investor confidence. For example, the Sunday News (9/12) reported that the National Incomes and Pricing Commission (NIPC) was to meet government to recommend another crackdown on "wayward" retailers. The paper quoted NIPC chairman, Godwills Masimirembwa, saying, "industry has become so irresponsible . . . Government will be left with no choice but to intervene." He said more than 80 percent of manufacturers had benefited from the Reserve Bank's Basic Commodity Supply Side Intervention Facility (BACOSSI), but "very few goods are available on the market" accusing them of "exporting some of their products as a form of sabotage."

The paper claimed that millers and bakers were the "biggest culprits" as they were accessing cheap maize and wheat from the Grain Marketing Board. The Chronicle (8/12) passively quoted Industry Minister, Obert Mpofu, echoing this, "those who continued to increase their prices wantonly should stop now because failure to do so would see them facing the full wrath of the law". Not a single representative of the business community was asked to comment on these allegations, and no attempt was made to assess the effects of the previous clampdown, which led to such a critical shortage of basic commodities. Similarly, The Herald (7/12) quoted Finance Minister, Samuel Mumbengegwi threatening that under-performing businesses would be taken over by the Zimbabwe Development Corporation.

But again, the voice of business was missing.

To make matters worse, The Herald (4/12) passively quoted Mumbengegwi expressing government's intolerance of criticism by instructing the business community to "move away from identifying faults in Government policies" and come up with "what it was prepared to do to turn around the economy". He also ordered them to "desist from using words that altered the actual economic situation" and sent the "wrong message" to the public, such as the use of the word "quadrillion" to describe the 2008 Budget and also "hyperinflation".

ZBC carried isolated reports of power cuts affecting Harare, but only gave an indication of how bad they were when quoting a ZESA official assuring Glen View residents, who had been without power for a week, that it was working "tirelessly" to restore electricity to the suburb. The government media's over-reliance on official statements was reflected in its sourcing pattern as illustrated in Fig 4.

Fig 4: Voice distribution in the government press

The private media more accurately exposed the collapse in service delivery. They devoted 34 stories to the topic (22 in the press and 12 in the electronic media). For example, The Financial Gazette (6/12) reported that South Africa and Zambia had stopped supplying power to Zimbabwe because the country had failed to pay its US$42 million debt to the two countries. This news was contained in the submissions of the parliamentary portfolio committee on Mines, Energy and Tourism, but was missing from The Herald's report (3/12), which only focused on comments by the Senate during debate on power shortages. The Zimbabwe Independent (7/12) reported that Zimbabwe was arranging for free electricity from the Democratic Republic of Congo in return for increased military support to President Joseph Kabila's close security. However, Energy and Power minister, Mike Nyambuya, denied this.

News of another collapse in the value of the dollar was mainly confined to radio station reports with Studio 7 (3/12) reporting "an all-time low of Z$4 million to the US dollar" and a "fourfold to fivefold" increase in prices of commodities and transport fares.

The private media also reported on teachers' new demands for a 1,500% salary increase (ZimOnline [3/12] and The Standard), and the ongoing magistrates' strike, now in its sixth week (Studio 7 [4/12]). The private media's widely spread sourcing reflected its coverage of the issues as illustrated by the private press (Fig 6).

Fig 5. Voice distribution in the private press

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