By Gift Mawire
Cash-starved Zimbabwe media houses are in secret dirty deals with RBZ Governor John Mangudya after it emerged that Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe RBZ is giving them “jacket adverts” and all other adverts which will boost them a lot on that condition that they do not say anything negative against the Bond Notes, theZimbabwenewslive.com can reveal.
On Tuesday last week Legal watchdog Veritas issued a statement highlighting the illegality of the Bond law.
Veritas argued that bond notes should only be in circulation for 180 days, as they were issued under President Robert Mugabe’s “invalid and unconstitutional” Temporary Measures Act, which is only valid for six months.
“The SI is illegal and legal experts are saying so, but not one newspaper will be reporting that because Mangudya promised them huge sums of money in advertising to promote the bond note… if you don’t want the money, say that… even ZimInd will not be saying it”,said a senior staffer at state-owned Herald.
Most of these media houses are instead carrying the RBZ adverts .
A further investigation has revealed that the 4 paged jacket advert covers cost US$12 500. The centre spread is $7000. And there are lots of full pages going for about $3,500 as well as adverts on newspaper websites.The total budget for each newspaper is as much as US$50 000.
However , it has been also established that the Zimpapers stable charge more, but ultimately the budget it fixed by the RBZ.
