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Monday
November 22nd - Sunday November 28th
2004
Weekly
Media Update 2004-47
2.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
3.
BUDGET
THE government media’s reluctance to expose
the authorities’ pathological hatred of a free Press was clearly illustrated by
their crude attempts to suffocate facts surrounding the delay in the arrival of
the England Cricket team, which is currently in the country for four one-day
international cricket matches against Zimbabwe.
Instead
of categorically informing their audiences that the visiting team had deferred
travelling to Zimbabwe because government had barred 13 foreign journalists from
covering the tour, these media feigned ignorance of the reasons for the
delay.
Typically,
ZTV (24/11, 8pm) in a 20-second item carried at the end of the bulletin,
reported: “Unverified
reports say the England Cricket team that was supposed to arrive at 9 am
hasn’t”, adding that the reasons for its non-appearance were
“unknown”.
It
was only the next morning that audiences of the government media got a glimpse
of why the team had not arrived on schedule through an AFP ‘brief’ tucked away
on the back page of The
Herald.
The
story reported that England had cancelled their flight to Harare “pending further discussions with
the Zimbabwean authorities over a number of British journalists who were denied
visas” to cover the tour. This represented totally inadequate
coverage of a major hitch to a highly publicized international tour and
warranted greater prominence, not to mention a full and factual
explanation.
The
private media displayed no such hypocrisy.
SW
Radio Africa (24&27/11), Studio 7 (25 &26/11), The Daily Mirror (25/11) and the Zimbabwe Independent (26/11) all gave
detailed and factual accounts of the story.
For
example, The Daily Mirror
reported that the English team had suspended their trip to Zimbabwe after
government had barred the journalists on political grounds. The paper cited a
BBC interview in which Information Secretary George Charamba was quoted saying
government had only accredited “bona fide media
organisations” and banned those that are “political” because
this was “game of
cricket, not politics”.
When
it emerged that the authorities had backed down and revoked the ban on the
journalists following threats of an England withdrawal from the tour, the
government media downplayed this seemingly humiliating about-turn and muffled
the truth.
Power
FM (25/11, 1pm), for example, passively allowed Information Minister Jonathan
Moyo to claim that delays in accrediting the 13 was “purely an administrative matter”
which arose because the journalists had “supplied insufficient
information” to government.
There
was no attempt by the official media to reconcile Moyo’s claims with the initial
reasons given by Charamba. Rather, The
Herald (26/11) merely announced that government had accredited all
journalists and unrepentantly maintained that some of them were “on a covert mission”
using cricket as a cover.
An
insight into why Moyo had climbed down on the matter appeared in the Independent. The paper revealed that ZANU
PF information secretary Nathan Shamuyarira had overruled Moyo’s decision as he
“thought nothing would
be achieved by banning the journalists, except feeding negative publicity about
government”.
The
government media’s efforts to suffocate the facts surrounding the cricket saga
demonstrates a total disdain for their obligation to accurately inform the
public of such important developments and clearly affirms their status as
slavish conduits of government propaganda.
2.
International Relations
THE
official media’s complicity in the systematic concealment of the government’s
human rights excesses from the public replayed itself in the way they obfuscated
fresh appeals by some European countries and the US asking the UN to intervene
and address the abuses in Zimbabwe.
These
media narrowly celebrated news that most developing countries in the UN General
Assembly, led by South Africa, had outvoted their counterparts 92:72 against the
adoption of a draft resolution condemning Zimbabwe’s poor human rights record
without fully informing their audiences about the substance of the motion, its
contents or relevance to the rights crisis in the country.
In
fact, the official media merely used the latest development to reinforce the
authorities’ specious claims that the reports alleging rights abuses in Zimbabwe
were being contrived by its former colonial master, Britain, in its bid to oust
government from power.
The
Sunday Mail
(28/11) even claimed that it was such ‘defeats’ like the blocked draft
resolution on Zimbabwe that had resulted in Britain “increasingly seeking to engage
Harare in dialogue to solve the bilateral problem”.
But
such unsubstantiated claims were by no means new.
Just
before the UN blocked the draft resolution on Zimbabwe, the government media
diverted the public’s attention from the contents of the resolution by cobbling
up conspiracy theories on the matter.
For
instance, The Herald (23/11)
claimed that the resolution, which among other things obliged Zimbabwe to create
conducive conditions for the holding of democratic elections and invite
independent international observers for the March 2005 elections, was part of
the “desperate”
manoeuvres by the British-led West “to sneak their observers into the
country” to discredit next year’s elections.
The
paper claimed that government’s proposed controversial electoral reforms and the
acquittal of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai on treason charges were eloquent
testimonies of the existence of democracy and the rule of law in the country,
contrary to the claims contained in the West’s “sponsored” UN
resolution.
No
attempt was made to honestly reconcile such one-sided claims with
reality.
However,
coverage of the issue by SW Radio Africa (25/11), Studio 7 (25/11) and The Daily Mirror (26/11) was more sober.
For example, while SW Radio Africa reported Amnesty International (AI) arguing
that the UN’s “no
action motion” that allowed Zimbabwe to escape investigation by
the world body “doesn’t help in improving the
human rights situation” in the country, Studio 7 quoted a South
African official defending the blocking of the resolution on the basis that it
was “confrontational
and would only exacerbate the situation (in Zimbabwe).”
Certainly,
while the government media were exploiting this development to spruce up
government’s human rights record, the authorities were ironically in the news
for trying to bar more than a dozen foreign journalists from covering England’s
current One Day International Cricket tour to Zimbabwe.
Typically,
The Herald and Chronicle (25 & 26/11) tried to
suffocate this latest display of government’s intolerance of media freedom, one
of the concerns raised by the proposed UN draft resolution. The two papers
carried brief reports on the matter and simply smothered the facts surrounding
the issue. This contrasted sharply with the detailed and balanced reports
carried by the private media, such as The
Daily Mirror (25/11), The
Financial Gazette (25/11) and Zimbabwe Independent
(26/11).
Moreover,
contrary to the government media’s selective coverage of the authorities’ escape
from UN censure, the private media actually revealed that the South African
labour union, COSATU, and that country’s Communist Party (CP) remained unsettled
by Zimbabwe’s hostile political environment.
SW Radio Africa (25 & 27/11), The
Daily Mirror (26/11) and The
Standard (28/11) reported that the SA labour body had resolved to
send another fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe following the ill-fated
deportation of its first one last month. This would be in addition to COSATU
staging a series of demonstrations outside all Zimbabwean embassies in the
region to protest against the deportation and the human rights violations in
Zimbabwe.
The
government media blacked out this development, including Studio 7’s (23/11)
revelations that the CP had called for “an end to political violence in
Zimbabwe”, saying that the “existing political climate in
Zimbabwe and the continued use of state repression to close down the media,
judiciary and opposition” was not conducive to the holding of
free and fair elections in 2005.
Similarly,
The Standard reported that AI had
called on government to withdraw the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Bill saying
the proposed law was “flawed” and should
be “appropriately
reviewed”.
The
government media continued to evade these matters.
Rather,
Power FM and Radio Zimbabwe (24/11, 6am) passively quoted Foreign Affairs
Minister Stan Mudenge blaming Zimbabwe’s problems on the West, particularly
Britain, which it accused of already scheming “not to recognise next year’s
elections”.
All
media, however, failed to either inform their audiences on the EU-ACP meeting or
investigate why ZANU PF MP Kumbirai Kangai, banned from travelling to Europe
under the EU’s targeted sanctions regime, had failed to travel to the
Netherlands for the meeting as revealed by The Daily Mirror (25/11). This was despite
the fact that the Netherlands had reportedly issued him with a visa despite
protests from the EU.
LACK
of interpretative skills resulted in most of the media failing to go beyond
economic jargon and simplify acting Finance Minister Hebert Murerwa’s $27,5
trillion budget proposal for 2005 for the benefit of their audiences.
For
example, instead of giving a clear breakdown of allocations to each ministry and
carrying out a comparative analysis of the current figures against those
allocated last year, most media simply rehashed Murerwa’s budget statement,
which buried such pertinent information in the text.
Although
The Herald (26/11) published the
proposed estimates of expenditure for each ministry, this was only through a
pullout of the full text of the minister’s statement.
Otherwise
the rest of the coverage was characterised by the government media’s
preconceived portrayal of the budget as the perfect companion to the RBZ’s
monetary policy and therefore an inevitable solution to Zimbabwe’s economic
problems.
On
the other hand, the private media were inquisitive, balancing this simplistic
perception with other hard economic indicators on the ground.
Even
before Murerwa presented his budget, the government media were already abuzz
with glowing previews of his financial statement, saying it was expected to
complement the success of the central bank’s monetary policy.
The
Chronicle (25/11), for example,
claimed that the budget, coming “against the successful
implementation of a tight monetary policy” and the drop in annual
inflation from 609 percent in January to
209 percent October, was expected to further steer economic growth.
Selected members of the public were also quoted expressing the hope that Murerwa
would come up with a “consumer-friendly
budget”.
The
Herald
(25/11) too exuded such expectation. However, both papers failed to provide an
accurate summary of how successfully government had implemented last year’s
budget.
Rather,
ZTV (24/11, 8pm) simply noted, without providing evidence, that “despite high inflation, low
official foreign currency inflows, reduced performance capacities by companies
and erosion of disposable income, the 2004 budget managed to meet targets.”
In addition, the station and Power FM (25/11, 6am) superficially
argued that the absence of a supplementary budget demonstrated government’s
“commitment to the
turnaround of the country’s economy” through “fiscal
discipline”. This was in spite of revelations by Minister Murerwa
that government had actually overspent by more than $1.3
trillion.
But
The Financial Gazette (25/11) was
doubtful. It pointed out that nothing
much was expected from Murerwa’s budget because the country’s “major part of the economic policy
(was) now driven by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe” which has given
the market “regular
direction on interest rates and the exchange rate” through its
quarterly monetary policy reviews.
The
government media however, still persisted in portraying the budget in glowing
and simplistic terms as illustrated by ZTV (25/11, 8pm & 26/11, 8pm),
The Herald and Chronicle (26/11). These media mainly
cited Murerwa’s allocation of $1 trillion for the capitalisation of the Energy,
Housing and Infrastructure Bank, $5 trillion for capital expenditure, $6.8
trillion for education and the raising of the monthly threshold for non-taxable
income to $1m and the tax-free bonus from $1m to $5 million as indicative of the
success of the budget.
Economic
analysts such as Samuel Undenge and selected members of the public were quoted
as welcoming these measures and describing the budget “as people-
centred”, ZTV (25/11, 8pm).
However,
none of these media questioned why, if the economy was on the mend, the budget
had soared from more than $7 trillion in 2004 to $27, 5 trillion proposed for
2005 – and indeed, where that money would come from.
Such
questions only found expression in the private media.
For
example, these media carried comments from a cross section of Zimbabweans such
as economists, political leaders, workers and ordinary members of the public as
being largely sceptical that the budget would revive the economy or meaningfully
improve the welfare of Zimbabwe’s hard-pressed workers and its
unemployed.
Some
commentators, like John Robertson, mused about government’s capacity to finance
the budget in the absence of “no investment”,
shortage of “new
jobs” and in the face of “fewer people paying
tax”, Studio 7 (25/11).
MDC
Shadow Minister Tendai Biti shared these sentiments. He told the same station
and the Independent that the
consumptive nature of the budget was nothing but a “dishonest, mendacious, over
ambitious” statement that would not do the economy any
good.
The
Independent also quoted him
criticising Murerwa for devoting 80 percent of the budget to recurrent
expenditure while allocating only $5 trillion for capital expenditure saying,
“no nation develops
without significant infrastructure developments that come from meaningful
capital investment”. In fact, Biti later told SW Radio Africa
(27/11) that both the 2005 budget and the RBZ’s monetary policy merely attempted
to perpetuate a rosy picture of the economy while the “political factors”
on the ground, “which have made it unattractive
for anyone to invest in Zimbabwe” remained unresolved. Said Biti: “It does not mention the neo
liberal policies that they have pursued particularly the micro-economic
programme by …Gono, which have exacerbated the crisis particularly in the
banking sector…the financial sector…the issue of the death of the export sector
because of an unrealistic exchange rate…”
The
Standard
also cited several analysts dismissing the budget, saying it did not “contain any concrete measures to
address unemployment and mass poverty”.
Although
The Daily Mirror (26/11)
initially praised Murerwa as having brought “Xmas cheer” by
widening tax bands, it later (27/11) castigated the minister for allocating
about 42 percent of the budget to civil servants while giving important sectors
such as health, which is on the brink of collapse, meagre amounts.
In
fact, the Independent noted that
the massive allocation to civil servants represented an increase of 324 percent
over last year and was above the current inflation rate of 209 percent. This,
argued the paper, was against “calls by the central bank to keep
salary hikes within reasonable levels to curb
inflation”.
However,
Principal Director in the Ministry of Finance Andrew Bvumbe defended the civil
servants’ allocation saying it was meant to avert high levels of brain drain and
raise civic servants’ salaries above the poverty datum line.
Equally,
the Chronicle (26/11) maintained
its defence of the budget on the grounds that it was “probably”
the “the most
‘people-friendly’ budget ever crafted in recent years,” because
it “had all the
ingredients of a government committed to the welfare of its people without
prejudice to economic success”.
Ends
The MEDIA UPDATE was
produced and circulated by the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, 15 Duthie
Avenue, Alexandra Park, Harare, Tel/fax: 263 4 703702, E-mail: monitors@mmpz.org.zw
Feel free to write to
MMPZ. We may not able to respond to everything but we will look at each
message. For previous MMPZ reports, and more information about the Project,
please visit our website at http://www.mmpz.org.zw/