“AIPPA should not be there but the fact is that people do not know what is bad about it. They just did not like the minister and the chairman,”
said Matonga, a member of the portfolio committee on Media Information and Communication Technology.
He was speaking at a public hearing of the Voluntary Media Council in Parliament.
The minister he referred to is Jonathan Moyo, who with the assistance of his sidekick the then chairman of the Media and Information Commission, Tafataona Mahoso, used AIPPA to close down several independent newspapers.
AIPPA was described by the late veteran nationalist Edson Zvobgo as “the most repressive piece of legislation ever passed in this country since the Land Apportionment Act of 1930.”
The ZMC has granted licenses to several private newspapers, but the media and individual journalists continue to be regulated under the terms of AIPPA.
Matonga agreed with the VMCZ position that self-regulation was the best way forward for the media in Zimbabwe.
Media analyst Ernest Mudzengi said AIPPA was bad and should be removed because it inhibits journalists from carrying out their job properly, and protected government from public scrutiny.
Post published in: News