Zimbabweans other than those fatally optimistic -- would obviously not have expected President Robert Mugabes party to have in just less than two years of unity government abandoned its autocratic tendencies. The leopard will never change its spots whether in two years, two hundred years or more.But few Zimbabweans would have expected Zanu (PF)s repressive instincts to actually worsen over these past 22 months to the extent that they now wish to enact a law that will make it virtually impossible — if not illegal — for taxpayers to monitor the actions of the government.
The new General Law Amendment Bill that the Zanu (PF) wing of the unity government plans to table in Parliament in the next few weeks is nothing but an attempt to stop ordinary Zimbabweans and the media from accessing official information including court judgments, new legislation and all public records.
Anyone wishing to access such information would have to first obtain special permission from the government minister responsible. What madness!
A journalist would for example need special permission from the minister of education to publish the number of children who contracted dairrhoea at a government primary school.
Likewise it would be a crime to publish a court judgment any court judgment no matter how mundane without permission from the minister of justice.
As we report elsewhere in this paper, the proposed law will simply serve to restrict the ability of ordinary citizens to monitor actions of the government and will help further worsen the culture of impunity that has pervaded Zimbabwes political landscape since 2000.
With the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), Zanu (PF) which still solely controls Zimbabwe despite existence of the GPA — was already able to do as it pleased, without caring a hoot what taxpayers thought.
Now, with this proposed new monster of a law they want to reduce taxpayers to mere spectators, banned from knowing whatever it is the government is up to until it hits them.
The Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe aptly summed the new law thus: a blatant attempt to condemn Zimbabweans to ignorance and the acceptance of an authoritarian culture of rule-by-decree.
We simply cannot allow this to happen. The time to stand up to tyranny is now. The call of duty is not on Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara, SADC or anybody else. It is on you Zimbabweans.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga