The media in Zimbabwe has done a great job in disseminating the idea of Zimbabwe being open for business, for a year now. Unfortunately, the media is exempt from this mantra taken up by President Mnangagwa since he stepped into office in November 2017
The new dispensation has, as always, promised to open up the media space for more players and break monopolization but not much is being done towards this.
Zimbabwe seems to be open for business in every other sector but the media.
Section 65.2 0f Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) clearly outlaws foreign investment in the media reached the media fraternity.
“(2) No person other than—
(a) a citizen of Zimbabwe or person who is regarded as permanently resident in Zimbabwe by virtue of the Immigration Act [Chapter 4:02]; or
(b) a body corporate in which a controlling interest is not held, directly or indirectly, whether through any individual, company or association or otherwise, by one or more individuals who are citizens of Zimbabwe or are regarded as permanently resident in Zimbabwe by virtue of the Immigration Act [Chapter 4:02]; may hold or acquire any shares in a mass media service.
This provision is not only in contrast with the mantra but a clear sign of insincerity of the new dispensation of the mantra.
Just as they declared that 49-51 of the Indigenisation Act not to be applicable to all minerals in the first month in office, they could have done that with the draconian provisions of AIPPA.
Procrastination in reforming AIPPA has put the government’s sincerity in bad light.
Pride Mkono, Generational Consensus Coordinator, says the government does not want anyone in the media industry so that they fully spread their ideologies without possibility of anyone countering it.
“The government is playing gatekeeper to protect its monopoly on propaganda. It is simply determined to be the only source of news from Zimbabwe. In short they are saying, “We have the exclusive rights to misinform people,” said Mkono.
His view is not recluse.
Leopold Munhende, a reporter says government reforming AIPPA and other media laws is a dream that is yet to be realised.
“There are no reforms which are going to come, no media reforms are going to come, AIPPA will still be there, POSA will still be there, OSA, all those repressive laws will still remain. They have remained from the time of Ian smith, smith to Canaan banana, from Canaan Banana to Robert Mugabe from Robert Mugabe to Emmerson Mnangagwa, they will not remove those laws,” said Munhende.
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe director, Thabani Moyo, says AIPPA is working against government’s mantra.
“… by its nature it (AIPPA) is closing business and contradictory to the government’s stance that they are open for business,” said Moyo.
Moyo is advocating for the scrapping off of AIPPA in its totality.
“AIPPA is in total, a violation of our supreme law of the land, the constitution of 2013. Mainly because most of its sections are ultra vires the supremacy of this constitution…. Amending AIPPA is a kneejerk approach and a waste of time. AIPPA should be repealed in total because by its nature, in trying to amend it will leave skeletal remains which will still be in violation of the constitution. So it is from that analysis that AIPPA has no place in a democratic society…,” Moyo said.
Such contrasts between policy and oration will only make Zimbabwe look confused, the government is indicating right and turning left.
That on its own could turn away investors.
The stay of AIPPA in statute books is not only a contrast of the open for business mantra but regional declarations on media.
Windhoek declaration provides that media should be open for investment.
In a nation striving for democratic maturity, AIPPA, surely should be discarded into the dustbin of legal irrelevance.
Efforts to hear the governments take on the issue where fruitless as there were no responses from Mr. Nick Mangwana.
