State media seeks to shore up print run ahead of key elections

The latest manoeuvre could represent the government's desire to oil the propaganda machinery for the incumbent regime, and coincided with moves to adjudicate on the licencing of the banned Daily News newspaper, a privately owned daily closed in 2004.

Ministry of Information officials this week sought a meeting with directors at Art Holdings, a Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) listed company, which owns the Mutare Board and Paper Mills, the only domestic supplier of newsprint in the country, to discuss the situation.

The officials toured the plant, based in Mutare, a town close to the border with Mozambique. Richard Zirobwa, Art Holdings' chief executive officer (CEO), said the government officials, who included Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndhlovu, wanted to
discuss "what needs to be done to solve the shortage".

"They are our biggest client through the Zimpapers group so they wanted to know what's happening," Zirobwa told Bizcommunity.com.

"We're not adequately supplying the market at the moment but it's not something out of the ordinary. The plant is still running and we'll ensure that the product keeps coming out," he said, indicating that structural constrains, primarily the shortage of energy, including coal, fuel and electricity, was hampering operations.

Zimpapers CEO, Justin Mutasa, this week issued an apology to readers, saying his group was struggling to meet demand due to shortages of newsprint and its late delivery to printers.

"The shortage is being caused by the erratic and inadequate supply of newsprint from Mutare Board and Paper Mills," Mutasa said, indicating that manufacturers had pledged to put in place modalities of increasing the production capacity to boost supplies.

Zimpapers publishes two daily newspapers, The Herald and The Chronicle, based in Harare and Bulawayo respectively, and four weekly titles, Sunday News, Sunday Mail, and the Manica Post, based in Bulawayo, Harare and Mutare respectively, as well as two vernacular weeklies.

It also publishes a number of monthly magazines. Zirobwa said they were still to find critical, replacement parts for equipment burnt when their Mutare plant caught fire sometime this year.

Resources were currently being mobilized to enable them to import the parts.