Overwhelming media coverage for summit

Farirai Machivenyika-Senior Reporter

Over a thousand journalists and media practitioners have applied for accreditation to cover the 44th Sadc Summit that Zimbabwe is hosting with Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Dr Jenfan Muswere saying the overwhelming interest was testimony of the success of President Mnangagwa’s engagement and re-engagement policy.

Dr Muswere said this on Friday in an interview with ZBC at the Summit venue, the new Parliament Building in Mt Hampden. He also said Government had put in place measures to ensure the media flawlessly disseminates information during the Summit.

“The Summit has repositioned Zimbabwe’s global standing in terms of international relations in that it has clearly redefined and ensured that Zimbabwe’s correct position is well recognised in terms of the engagement and re-engagement strategy,” Dr Muswere said. 

“In terms of the media, we are satisfied with the levels of preparedness and we are ready to roll. The media centres have been put in place and at the same time the media broadcasting ecosystems which will provide clean feed across the globe with participatory media industry has also been put in place. 

“At the same time, we have received an overwhelming and oversubscribed interest in the number of journalists who are interested in covering the Sadc Summit and they number around a thousand and as we continue to process and to accredit as a country the number of journalists and media practitioners across the world, this also clearly indicates and underlines the importance of the re-engagement strategy by President, Dr E.D Mnangagwa, in that he has put in place the policies and legislation which fundamentally protect the journalism industry which will also ensure access to information as we journey towards an upper middle income society within the context of Sadc as a family so we are confident that this Sadc Summit will be a success.”

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Ambassador Frederick Shava Sadc had honoured Zimbabwe and President Mnangagwa through choosing Harare to host the Summit.

“Naturally, the President has to prepare to meet his colleagues and the President has to prepare to make sure that his country is seen in good esteem by his colleagues, so the state of preparedness is very high. 

“The meetings have already started because the Committee of Officials, chaired by our Permanent Secretary, Albert Chimbindi have already begun and they are on-going right now and when those meetings end there will be a meeting of Ministers of Sadc, which I will chair and this will be on the 13th and 14th. 

“After that there will be continuation on the 15th and 16th, the Troika meeting and the meeting for Defence and Security will be chaired by Zambia who will be handing over to Tanzania the Troika responsibility,” Ambassador Shava said. He will take over the chairmanship of the Sadc Council of Ministers from Angola.

“I am going to be running with the new theme of the 44th Session which is going to be largely talking about industrialisation of the Sadc countries and this you saw already when the Industrialisation Week was happening that Zimbabwe is very keen that industrialisation happens not only in Zimbabwe but also in our neighbours in Sadc,” Ambassador Shava said.