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Freeman Razemba-Senior Reporter

JOURNALISTS must have first-hand information about developmental projects around the country initiated by the Second Republic instead of relying on officialdom, a senior official has said.

In an interview after a tour of the Harare-Beitbridge Highway by editors drawn from the country’s mainstream media organisations last Friday, the director of Media Services in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Mr George Chisoko, said Government is always available to show the world, through the media, that it is walking the talk on development.

“We are delighted as the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services working together with the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development and the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) to have facilitated this media tour involving over 40 editors from across the media spectrum.

“The thrust of this tour, we wanted the editors to have an appreciation of the good work that the Second Republic is undertaking so we started with the Mbudzi interchange and we moved to the Harare-Beitbridge Road. We were stopping with the editors giving them time to assess the work that is being done,” Mr Chisoko said.

“Most of them have expressed their happiness with the work that the Second Republic is undertaking. What we wanted was to make them see what is happening, instead of them depending on officials telling them about progress, we wanted them to come and see for themselves. And indeed they have been here and they have seen the work, they have seen the good work of the Second Republic. As a Ministry working with our partners, we are very happy to have facilitated this tour”.

He said the tour was very important for the editors since they were the gatekeepers in their respective media houses.

“We said we need editors to come on this tour so that they have an appreciation of the good work, the development agenda that the Government has undertaken. What we want to achieve is to have editors tell the Zimbabwean story. Let them see what is taking place here, let them see the progress made so far. We walk the talk as Government, we don’t talk the walk,” he said.         

Addressing editors and reporters after the media tour in Beitbridge last Friday, Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Felix Mhona said the media tour dovetails with the Government’s robust communication strategy, which seeks to leave no one and no place behind.

“The media tour dovetails with the Government’s robust communication strategy, which seeks to leave no one and no place behind. The doyens of the media tour’s technical roll-out are none other than the 20-plus journalists who have been gathering necessary data on infrastructure development along the North-South corridor in the past two days. We have no doubt that they will curate, analyse and present such data as palatable news for our major stakeholder: the general public.

“I am particularly excited that we have demonstrated to the whole nation that road infrastructure development is not a one-man task but a public enterprise championed by several elements of the road infrastructure upgrade ecosystem. Indeed, all of us have a role to play. Firstly, I recognise the magnified presence and support of the leaders of the National Editors’ Forum and their host of journalists. You are the conveyer belts of requisite information which we cannot do without,” he said.

Minister Mhona said he was pleased to note that the media team and all other delegates witnessed that the highway that they used all the way from Harare up to Beitbridge town was being upgraded by local contractors.

He said at least 340km of the Harare-Beitbridge highway have so far been opened to the public as Government’s robust infrastructure development drive continues to bear positive fruits.