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Dr Gideon Gono

Conrad Mwanawashe Harare Bureau
INFORMATION Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo says he was alarmed by recent insinuations by former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, Dr Gideon Gono, that he was being blacked out by the media.
Dr Gono made the claims during a visit by President Robert Mugabe to his farm last week.
But Prof Moyo, addressing the inaugural meeting of the Information and Media Panel of Inquiry in Harare yesterday, said if true that Dr Gono was being denied access to the media, that was “undesirable”.

“I was alarmed the other week when my good friend the former Governor suggested that there are some people who don’t want anything about him covered. He told the President something to that effect,” Prof Moyo said.

“Well, when a person feels like there’s a problem, of course, they’ve the right to say what they’re saying. But when what they’re saying, if true, sounds like a major affront to civilised conduct, then we must take note. If what he alleges is true, then it’s serious and we must do something about that.”

He added that “we shouldn’t have a situation where anyone has power to block other people from being covered by the media… It’s undesirable.”

With a strong hint that he was not convinced that Dr Gono’s claims were true, Prof Moyo suggested that if the former RBZ chief really felt ignored he could use his newspaper — the Financial Gazette —  to publish what he wanted.

“Although in jest when I heard that my friend had said that, I said he can’t be the one saying this because he has his own newspaper,” said Prof Moyo.

“If these guys are not covering you, just use your own newspaper for goodness’ sake. What’s your problem?”
Prof Moyo said “very few people have newspapers”, and those who have them are always writing about themselves.

“And this friend of mine, I’ve seen that in fact he knows how to use his newspapers. If he has a court case, he’ll reproduce the entire affidavit of his and put it on the front page and won’t put the other guy’s responding affidavit. Who cares? We’re in a possessive media.

Either you possess it or you don’t. If you possess it, you tell your story and that’s how it goes. But that’s not good for our country.”
Prof Moyo said he had expected a response from the media challenging Dr Gono’s claims “in such a way that we don’t have a repeat; because if there is situation like that we should get to the bottom of it.”

“From a factual point of view, it should be possible to factually say yes, there’s this kind of thing; the ones who are doing it are so and so, so that they never do it again. But if the one alleging it is also telling a lie, the media should say this guy was not telling the truth. But in Zimbabwe, our media set-up is such that you can’t get to the bottom of the matter. You’re left hanging.”

Meanwhile, the minister also addressed problems at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) which was this week forced to reverse a management decision to appoint some staff to new positions without consulting the Ministry or ZBC board.

Prof Moyo said the board’s reversal of senior re-assignments was in line with the government’s efforts to engender good corporate governance in parastatals.

“We’ve a management team that was used to taking decisions on their own without referring to the relevant authorities and they’ve been told that if you were doing this yesterday, you can no longer do it that today.”

Prof Moyo said the ministry had nothing to do with the arrest and subsequent prosecution of suspended ZBC chief executive officer, Happison Muchechetere, on corruption charges.

“We didn’t know about it before it happened and we’re not the complainant.”