The IMPI, chaired by Geoff Nyarota and set up by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo last year, has been dogged by controversy, lack of transparency in the choice of members, abuse of resources and extravagance.
“The main recommendation is the need for the review of existing media laws in line with the constitution, including media regulation, and the removal of all penal measures and criminalisation,” reads the report. Several laws, among them the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), Officials Secrets Act, Interception of Communication Act and the Criminal Law (Codification) Act have been rapped for severely limiting media freedom.
IMPI said AIPPA should be repealed and replaced with a law that promotes real access to information as provided under section 61 of the constitution adopted in 2013. Some panel members have accused Nyarota of manufacturing part of the report’s content. Dumisani Muleya, last week openly accused Nyarota of smuggling into the report content that was not agreed on by the thematic committees.
“You must not mislead people here, I have openly disputed that assertion that journalism standards are going down, and I strongly believe, even from what people said, that there are ethical challenges. “It’s you Nyarota, who has imported things into the report that were never said by the people. I raised these issues and you have refused to listen; Foster here will confirm this. You lied in the report that people said it is difficult to access journalists training in the country when in fact no one said that,” Muleya said at a meeting in the capital.
Nyarota also came under attack from a raft of journalists for supporting the recent raid on The Source by Econet.
Access to information
“There is a need for all stakeholders, especially government, to provide an enabling environment for access to information held by public bodies. The state should make every effort to ensure easy, prompt, effective and practical access to such information,” the report said.
Sections 4 and 8 of the Official Secrets Act should be amended to ensure clarity, the penalties for contravention of these sections should be reduced and the scope of defences expanded to include public interest and journalistic privilege.
Alternatively, the panel recommended that the whole act must be overhauled and replaced with another law that addresses public interest disclosures or espionage.
Rights to privacy
“The national legal framework, especially the Interception of Communications Act (ICA), must be updated to take into account technological developments in the media and information sector and to provide better protection and balance of citizens’ right to privacy and protection of state security and other aims of such a law.
“In particular, the act should be amended to ensure that government only has access to technical data rather than the contents of communication, subject to judicial authorisation,” said IMPI.
The ICA should be changed to provide for reasonable suspicion to be demonstrated before communications are intercepted as is the case worldwide. Currently, parliament is considering two bills, the computer crime and cyber crime bill. It is feared that this will be abused by the Zanu (PF) government as it targets independent media and the opposition.
The panel argued for co-regulation of the media, which would involve statutory and voluntary self-control among media houses. It said the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC), a statutory body, should be retained to ‘exercise general oversight’ and also suggested the retention of the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) as a self-regulatory body.
Non-interference
“Public media should be national in scope to serve the interests of the public and the nation, and the national broadcaster should be a public service broadcaster. State parties should ensure that public broadcasting services operate in an independent manner with editorial independence,” said the IMPI report
The public print and broadcast media have been operating at the behest of the government, with cabinet ministers sometimes reported to generate content that is then attributed to reporters.
The political opposition and institutions and individuals considered enemies of Zanu (PF) have been consistently denied access to the public media including during election time and in contravention of the electoral law.
Post published in: News