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For the past four weeks, the media have devoted their energies to exposing malfeasances in parastatals and Government-linked enterprises.  It has been hard-hitting in tone, rooted in facts and brutal in its exposure.
For once, watchdog reporting has very much been centre stage, a development that must be embraced. At least this has been a welcome break from the usual content saturated with partisan shouting.

However, the watchdog role of the media seems to be misunderstood by some, no matter their station in life.

Vice President, Cde Joice Mujuru berated the media for exposing corruption in parastatals, saying the graft cases should not be discussed in the media. The Vice President believes that the exposure could be the work of detractors who want to destroy Government and stall its programmes.

This came as public outrage continued to mount over the corrupt activities in the public sector. Therefore, her statement was misconstrued as an attempt to cover up on the vice. The statement was also taken as Government interference into the work of the media.

Despite public outcry over her statement, the Vice President does not condone corruption.

At the same platform, Cde Mujuru admitted that she was also in great distress over the graft in public enterprises, which she said must be rooted out. She even described the looters as counter-productive people who were weighing down the country’s economic agenda. Cde Mujuru is a true believer in the watchdog concept or regulatory function of the media and holds expectations of the role of the media in respect of graft.

She might have her reasons for chastising the media with respect to the coverage of the subject at hand.

In fact, her fear could be justified if the accusations being played out in the media are part of political contestation.

It’s a fact that some media can be scandal-mongers whose end goal is to make some politicians profit or lose from these exposes.

Nevertheless, it is the core business of the media to unmask such corruption. One of the fundamental roles of the media in a democracy is watch-dogging, which involves oversight on public offices. The media, as the eyes and ears of the public, act as protectors or guardians against any moral deficits, as agents of social control. The current wave of exposes is within the mandate of any responsible media. This is the reason why the Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Professor Jonathan Moyo highly praised the media for extensively exposing the rot in parastatals.

However, the media fraternity and the public at large are left in perplexity when two conflicting statements come from two mouths of the same body.

It is incorrect to say that graft cases are outside the purview of media coverage for this may imply complicity, on the part of the media, in the commission of malfeasance. It is the duty of the media to inform its citizens to enable them to make knowledgeable decisions.

In the case of PSMAS “Salarygate”, members, mostly civil servants, needed to know how their funds were being managed or, in this case, mismanaged. They have been short-changed by PSMAS, which was no longer giving them a quality medical service.

For sometime now, the civil servants have been receiving meagre salaries without complaining because they believed that sanctions were incapacitating Government to pay them handsomely.

Surely it erodes their trust in government when they learn that somebody is paying himself a salary sufficient to pay over 1 200 of them.

Therefore, it is the business of the media to discuss the rot, without which the public would still be in the dark. The watchdog role entails pushing such important issues into public sphere that would otherwise be ignored.

This is not the work of detractors. In fact, the people who are bent on destroying Government and stalling its programmes are the bosses of parastatals themselves.

These are Government appointees tasked with running Government institutions that are supposed to be the chief drivers of the economic reconstruction.

They have a key role to play in the successful implementation of Zim Asset. Without necessarily infringing on the rights of citizens, the media should continue to ensure that individuals who are supposed to serve the public remain accountable.

No one must be immune to media scrutiny. For the watchdog role to be more effective, the media need autonomy, which also comes with responsibilities. Its watchdog role must be driven by a desire to protect public interest rather than individual’s interests.

The Government must be serious in its commitment to eliminating corruption as this could turn out to be its Achilles heel. Political will is sacrosanct for the fight against the vice of corruption.  The prolonged civil war in Sierra Leone was largely attributed to pervasive corruption in governance.

The general populace need not view Government as reluctant to take action against those fingered in corruption. Rather, the exposure by the media is now expected to prompt investigations with a view to bringing the perpetrators of graft to book.