Managers and top dogs at the state-owned media broadcasting houses have been up in arms this week over a possible cabinet directive to reduce the extortionate salaries they earn. Grumbling that they deserve such remuneration because of their loyalty to Zanu (PF), bosses at Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), Transmedia and the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) said they would just ignore the directive as it didnt come from their boss Webster Shamu. He and his sidekick, George Charamba, soothed the irate bosses by saying that nothing would happen without their blessing.
These people must realise that cabinet is the ultimate authority in government. It is above individual ministers. Anarchy begins when the institutions of government are ignored in exactly this manner.
While people like the CEO of ZBC, Happison Muchechetere, and his three general managers earn hefty monthly salaries and additional expenses including travel, entertainment, housing and weekly hardship, our Members of Parliament are paying for their own petrol because of inadequate funding.
Since the first sitting of the seventh Parliament, MPs, many of whom are working tirelessly to rebuild out nation, have been forking out their own cash to cover travel expenses on parliamentary business the peoples business.
Elsewhere in this newspaper we report that the Media Institute of South Africa (MISA) was forced to abandon a meeting in Gwanda after police pulled out the POSA card. This was despite the organisation having applied for licenses in line with the law. The meeting was about establishing community radio initiatives so that the local people could be better informed. Clearly that is the kind of independent thinking that the security forces like to quell.
Now that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has riled President Mugabe by refusing to recognise his unilateral appointments of governors, the PM and his party are being denied media coverage. How can we expect people to be well informed enough to make meaningful contributions to the constitution making process, and informed choices about which party they want to support, when the media is controlled by Zanu (PF) moguls?
This is precisely why it is vital to liberate the electronic media from Zanus stranglehold and turn it into a proper public broadcaster.
We join with MISA to call yet again for freedom of the media. We are tired of the state monopoly on broadcasting, the coarse propaganda and the endless jingles that seek to indoctrinate people with Mugabes rhetoric. Despite new laws that broadcasting licenses can be issued, and Shamus promise that this would be done, there has been no movement on the part of the Ministry of Media and Zimbabweans are sick and tired of waiting.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga