The Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services will soon dust the Information Media Panel of Inquiry (IMPI) report and call for a forum to digest the contents of the report with the view of coming up with a draft that will be forwarded to the Cabinet Committee on Legislation, the permanent secretary in the ministry, Cde George Charamba has said.
He said the delay in looking at the report had been caused by the shortage of funds and the high turnover of ministers at the ministry.
“We have had the IMPI report. There has been a delay in processing that document which is arising from the sheer fact of the high turnover of Ministers of Information until now.
“We had Professor Moyo, then an acting Minister and then thank God, we now have a substantive minister. So due to that fact we couldn’t tackle such a substantive matter.
“Now that there is a substantive minister and a substantive deputy minister, we are going to dust off that report, present it to the ministers. In fact that was my recommendation last week.
“We want the ministers to grasp its concerns and before long we will be inviting stakeholders to a forum where we are going to develop a common understanding of the preoccupations of that report. Also tied to that will be the elicitation of policy issues from that report,” said Cde Charamba.
He said the issue about media laws has to be attended to as a matter of urgency since there are signs of tensions ahead.
“It has become quite urgent because I can see tension ahead at the rate at which the media are going. I see lots of tensions. So its important that we have a comprehensive law which deals with the media. Maybe one of the reasons we are having this big problem around the media is a sense that the laws existing are going to be changed. So pane kasense kevacuum.
“When we elicit policy issues, we will proceed to make some draft which we will then forward to the Cabinet committee on legislation before its put to Cabinet then tabled to Parliament. Everyone will be consulted,” he said.
Cde Charamba warned MISA saying: “Now I am raising this matter because just a day or two ago, I picked information that people from MISA were going to start from this coming Monday to fan out provinces discussing the IMPI report.
“Firstly, its not their report. Its a Government report. Secondly the copyright of that report reposes in Government, not in MISA or an other interest. Not even the panel because the panel was doing Government work.
“Thirdly, its a document preceding policy and to that extent, its a privileged document. All the material that goes towards making a policy, the raw material towards making a policy is privileged in terms of policy processes.
“Its not a public document. It has just become public because we decided that so. If it was a commission of inquiry you would not see it. We decided that we are about publicity, about the media and about communication, so let’s make it available. This however, doesn’t take away the status.
“That’s a Government document and no one, I repeat no one can take it and present it to a discussion fora without the authority of Government.
“It’s Minister Mushowe’s document and Minister Mathuthu. You cannot do anything with it until and unless you have their express authority.
The biggest constraint has been the budget but we are hoping that we should be able to raise money. We have approached some donors but equally we have approached the Ministry of Finance,” he said.
This article was first published in The Sunday http://www.sundaymail.co.zw/impi-report-indaba-on-cards
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