ZBC journalist asks minister to re-read speech!

"I am very sorry, can the Deputy Minister read her speech again," she asked amid murmurs from other scribes present at the function.

The function was hosted by the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) and was attended by more than 20 journalists from all media houses in Harare.

The journalist then asked the UN Women boss in Zimbabwe, Hodan Addou if Deputy Minister Majome and herself to read their presentations again so that the ZBC could show them on national television during the Main News Bulletin.

"This just goes to show how arrogant the ZBC is," said a journalist who was at the same function.

"They think they are very special and she must just ask to interview the Deputy Minister during break time. She is late full stop and we cannot allow her to make us listen again to what we have already heard."

Other journalists objected to the reading of the presentations again.

The function was held in Harare to honour three Zimbabweans who are going to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in order to make people aware of violence against women.

There are two women and one man in the delegation which will climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa.

"If others object then you will have to seek an interview during the break," Addou told the journalist much to her dismay and discomfort in front of the other scribes.

This is not the first time that the ZBC TV crew has arrived late for a function.

At other functions, however, they are given preference and other journalists are told to wait for them while they disturb functions setting up their dilapidated equipment.

The late Minister of Housing and national Planning, Enos Chikowore, was infamous for waiting for the ZBC to film him because he thought the ZBC TV was "the only media" in Zimbabwe.

The cash-strapped ZBC Holdings Limited has a monopoly over the airwaves in Zimbabwe at the moment.