POLITICS-ZIMBABWE: Independent Daily Adds Retrenchments to Its List of Woes

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Wilson Johwa

HARARE, Feb 26 2004 (IPS) - The chances of Zimbabwe’s only privately-owned daily newspaper ever reappearing on newsstands appeared bleaker this week, when its management announced massive retrenchments.

The Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) said it was laying off about 80 percent of its 300-strong workforce because authorities were preventing publication of the Daily News. The retrenchment will reportedly be in effect by Friday (Feb. 27).

The paper, which has had an uneasy relationship with the government of President Robert Mugabe, has been repeatedly shut down since September last year.

Police swooped on Daily News premises after the paper refused to register its journalists under a controversial law, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), introduced soon after Mugabe’s re-election in 2002.

ANZ argued that provisions in the act requiring compulsory registration of media organisations and journalists were unconstitutional. A legal challenge to the act was launched. However, Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the law was constitutional.

ANZ has since attempted to accredit its journalists with the government-controlled Media and Information Commission, but these efforts have been rebuffed. The company has taken the matter to court, and a ruling on the case is expected on Mar. 3.

When the newspaper’s woes began its publisher, ANZ Chairman Strive Masiyiwa – a mobile phone magnate now based in South Africa – promised staff that he would pay salaries even if the legal battle to publish took two years.

ANZ Chief Executive Sam Nkomo insisted this week that the company had not gone back on its word.

“The only reason why we announced our intention to retrench is because our staff demanded a 2,000 percent salary increase whilst we have no revenue,” Nkomo told IPS.

But, Columbus Mavhunga, Secretary-General of the company’s workers’ committee, said triple-digit inflation had reduced salaries to a quarter of the market rate. He added that the ever-present risk of arrest, harassment and injury by the authorities had also made a wage increase overdue.

“Our argument has always been that we never played a part in the events that led to the closure of the paper,” said Mavhunga, adding “It was as a result of management’s wisdom – or lack of.”

Nkomo maintains the workers’ demands were mistimed. “My feeling is that they should have stuck with us until the end,” the ANZ chief said. “It’s painful. But, who said it was going to be easy?”

ANZ is retaining a core group of 70 people who will be able to get the newspaper back in circulation should courts rule in its favour next month.

Abel Mutsakani, who heads the Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe, says the closure of the Daily News is part of a government campaign to clamp down on all dissenting voices ahead of parliamentary elections next year.

“AIPPA was designed to control and gag the press, putting journalists under the control of the government,” he observed. However, Nkomo remains optimistic that the Daily News and its sister paper, the Daily News on Sunday, have not breathed their last.

Since it was established in 1999, the Daily News has survived bomb blasts at its premises in 2000 and 2001. At present, weekly newspapers supply the only voices which are critical of government in the Zimbabwean media. Both radio and television are controlled by the authorities, and have been accused of heavy bias towards the Mugabe administration.