By Dr Tafataona Mahoso
INITIAL responses to the airing of Al Jazeera’s four-part documentary ‘The Gold Mafia’ have added to the list of issues I explored in my March 10 2023 instalment in The Patriot, especially what I called ‘Zimbabwe 2023 and the fore-seeable and un-fore-seeable content of the strategic field’.
From the outset, it may be necessary to explain what is meant by ‘media battles beyond the repeal of AIPPA’ in this instalment.
It does not mean that Al Jazeera or any other media are waging war against Zimbabwe or against anybody — No.
The media are just doing their work.
Media war here means political, economic and individual interests will wage war against their competition and against the people of Zimbabwe using whatever media footage or story or clip or paragraph they can throw, even out of historical context.
For me, the most unusual and most significant thing about the event of the airing of the documentary wasn’t the Al Jazeera documentary itself or what is wrong or correct about its allegations.
From my personal experience. such controversies are to be expected, especially in an election year; and there should be strategic national structures and institutions in place always to handle them in a credible, transparent and confident manner.
After all, there is an election this year and every voter deserves to be clear what the issues are.
What was truly eye-opening for me was what the event(s) revealed about the management of Government communications in Zimbabwe at present.
First of all, with a properly co-ordinated Government information management system in place, some people or agencies would have long ago picked up signals or movements indicating that such footage was being collected toward such a narrative about gold production and marketing in Zimbabwe and the region.
Did the system so over-relax after the repeal of AIPPA that the series would come as a complete surprise?
Indeed, the assertion has not yet been disputed that the undercover documentary took a whole two years to put together!
Here I am not implying that advance knowledge that such a narrative was being created should have led to its stoppage.
I mean that some of the deplorable conduct, some of the shameful activities which now make the content of these series should, and could, have been stopped.
Second, we can assume that President Emmerson Mnangagwa would have moved to appoint a national Commission of Inquiry (Sandura style) if he were convinced that the allegations of abuses of power and abuses of office by powerful officials were beyond the capacity and purview of agencies already mandated by the Constitution to handle money-laundering, corruption and racketeering cases.
The fact that the President has not done so means that he has confidence that those institutions, already constitutionally mandated to handle such matters, will investigate the allegations in ways that will enable the people to put them in their proper perspective and to make 2023 election choices with certainty and confidence about which party and candidate stands for what.
That Parliament also has not moved to set up a formal inquiry may also be taken to mean that the lawmakers are counting on the Constitutional organs reporting to it on the investigations.
Third, the assertion that the documentary took a whole two years to put together and no one inside the Government information management system seems to have known becomes significant in another way: Can thorough, transparent and convincing investigations of all the key allegations be conducted and reported in time for elections? Regardless of which mode of inquiry is chosen, this thing has broken out rather too close to elections.
Was the two-year delay deliberate?
What factors influenced Al Jazeera’s timing of the release of its series?
Fourth (and this is where Government communications management comes in):
The Government spokesperson does not have to speak at all times and about everything.
Short of a full-fledged national Commission of Inquiry, the veracity and credibility or lack thereof of the Al Jazeera series will, at the end of the day, depend mostly on forensic evidence in the possession of specialised agencies best placed to explain it to the people and that, in fact, also have their spokespersons.
So, this is one of those occasions when the overall Government spokesperson can serve the public best as an effective co-ordinator of other spokespersons representing agencies relevant to the gold sector and capable of carrying out forensic investigations.
There was a vague reference to several such agencies being seized with the urgent need for investigations but the same statement undermined that promise by purporting to second guess what the specialised agencies were supposed to say or to find.
We do not know and we must treat each suspected person as innocent until proven guilty.
This is where the media war aspect becomes a problem: the political and economic interests seeking to influence voters in this election will not wait for long investigations to produce verdicts.
Rutendo Matinyarare, speaking from South Africa, correctly pointed out that one effect of the Al Jazeera series was to tarnish the whole value chain and infrastructure put in place to mine, refine and market gold in Zimbabwe.
But that is because apparently the various agencies involved have not been integrated into the Government communications system.
That is the impression given at the initial press conference.
In this sort of case the specialised agencies were not just there to be mentioned in passing; they should have been empowered and co-ordinated to speak for themselves, when ready; and they include the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe; the Anti-Corruption Commission; the Zimbabwe Republic Police; Fidelity Printers and Refineries; the Civil Aviation Authority; and others.
What each has to report would be more convincing and more assuring to the anxious public than one generalised statement.
So, my fifth suggestion is that there has to be a co-ordinated nexus of Government communications serving as a permanent, if informal, structure and practice which can be escalated when an issue such as the Al Jazeera series arises.
Such a system is not built overnight. It is part of a patriotic work culture built on good faith, mutual trust and emotional intelligence — it is essential.
In a book called ‘A Responsible Press Office’, Maguerite H. Sullivan observed that:
“If there are no clear ( and agreed) procedures, an administration could respond with contradictory information, and the public would be left confused and ultimately mistrusting of the government.
For a government official and his or her press office, the rule should be: no surprises. Or at least, as few as possible.
The ‘no surprise’ rule is also of crucial importance in the relationship between the central government office and government departments, as well as between a Ministry and its subsections. It is important to determine how Cabinet-level activities fit into the overall government media relations programme and what role the spokesperson plays. Much of the agenda of a government is carried out through Cabinet offices and Ministries, and ideally there is co-ordination among them. A key issue is the degree of control a central government official wants and can maintain over the public information efforts of Cabinet-level agencies.”
In addition to agreeing on a procedure through which Cabinet-level agencies participate in the central government spokesperson’s programme, there is yet another division of responsibilities to consider: that between those who strategise and frame the long-term themes and messages, on one hand, and the spokesperson interfacing with the Press and the public on a day-to-day basis on the other hand. Who should have overall authority? Depending on the complexity of the issues at hand, there are rare occasions when the strategist should be the one to speak instead of the regular spokesperson.
Way forward: dumping the neo-liberal religion of billionaire worship
We boast having opened the airwaves, having increased the numbers of radio and TV stations; but much of the content conveyed via these channels is truly retrogressive, confusing mere money worship and greed with entrepreneurship.
In fact, scholars of economic development are talking now about greedflation, a new type of inflation, and consequent impoverishment of many, fuelled mainly through the greed of those with power and money.
How many shows have we watched or listened to which engage in billionaire and millionaire counting as a neo-liberal sport?
Great nations are counted as admirable because they boast the largest number of billionaires, so goes the thinking.
This is the mindset, this is the cultural climate which tolerates, even encourages boastful greed.
It is a culture where it is cool to admire those who eat and live well on our behalf, even when much of what they are eating was not honestly obtained.
This mindset has to be changed and the proliferating media outlets are one of the places where that change has to happen.
Way forward: grow and guard the Zimbabwe sovereign wealth fund
In 2014, the Parliament of Zimbabwe passed the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill.
It became a Sovereign Wealth Fund Act on June 26 2015.
The Act actually stipulates the percentage of mineral royalties which must go to the Sovereign Wealth Fund to be kept safe by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for the benefit of all citizens.
The minerals listed at that time were, in their order:
gold, diamonds, coal, methane gas, nickel, chrome, and platinum.
Today, the list would be amended to put lithium up high, close to diamonds and gold.
Developing a national mindset focused on growing the national Sovereign Wealth Fund and improving its protection by demanding frequent reports and audits, by asking to know which truly national projects have been completed using money from the SWF, that is what we and our media should be pre-occupied with; instead of counting and worshiping other people’s billionaires or wishing we had more of them.
Let us make the bold decision to build, grow, protect and deploy our own Sovereign Wealth for the benefit of the whole nation.
Then we will have become our own proud donors.
Then we will have met the wish of those who fought for and died for our freedom, a wish expressed well through the song:
‘Tinoda Zimbabwe neupfumi hwayo hwose….’
Iwe neni tine basa.
