REMOVE PUNITIVE TAX ON FOREIGN NEWSPAPERS

In June 2008, the government ordered foreign publications including newspapers, journals, magazines and periodicals to pay an import duty after unjustifiably classifying them as luxury goods. The Permanent Secretary for Information and Publicity in the President’s Office, George Charamba said the imposition of the punitive tax was meant to protect and defend the national media space.

             

As a result of the imposition of the import duty some essential publications have fallen foul to the new tax regime. South African newspapers that have significant readership in Zimbabwe and the London-based title, The Zimbabwean, have been hit hard by the tax and forced to cut down on copies imported into the country. According to Wilf Mbanga, the publisher and editor of The Zimbabwean, a popular weekly newspaper, the punitive tax has resulted in the suspension of the publication of its sister newspaper, The Zimbabwean on Sunday and the slashing of the print run of The Zimbabwean from 150 000 copies a week to 50 000 copies. ZLHR considers the imposition of the exorbitant tax on externally published newspapers as an administrative and legislative ploy of curbing access to information and an infringement of freedom of expression. This promulgation by the government has thus effectively silenced divergent sources of information from circulating in the country, thereby limiting people’s access to alternative views. Under such impermissible circumstances it becomes impossible to create political pluralism, as characterized by robust, vibrant and independent exchange of ideas by the citizenry, especially in a country without a diverse and independent public media system, such as ours. Indeed a  lack of media diversity and an independent press leads to lack of political diversity.

 

The continued restrictions on access to information through punitive taxation constitutes a clear breach of the right to freedom of the media and expression, which is guaranteed under the country’s Constitution and by numerous international conventions, including the Windhoek Declaration and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of the Declaration  categorically states that Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers.The newspaper tax, together with the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), the Criminal Law (Codification Reform) Act, the Official Secrets Act, the Broadcasting Services Act and the Interception of Communications Act, is in fundamental conflict with access to information the right to freedom of the media and expression.

 

ZLHR strongly urges parties to the political dialogue to constructively discuss the media environment in the country and urgently put mechanisms in place for  the speedy repeal (or amendment)  of laws that infringe media freedom and freedom of expression, so as to comply with international  and regional standards guaranteeing access to information, freedom of the media and expression.