Zimbabwe: Newspapers grab new pricing opportunity to prevent collapse

The move comes after the National Incomes and Pricing Commission (NIPC), a government agency responsible for price controls and monitoring, wrote to newspaper executives at the end of last month informing them that price controls on newspapers had been scrapped with effect from July.

The state-controlled newspapers have since had three price reviews since then, with the latest one, due tomorrow, July 12, 2008, likely to push the price of The Herald, the broadsheet daily, to Z$25bn, from a recently reviewed price of Z$8bn.

The weekly business and financial newspaper, The Financial Gazette, pushed its cover price to Z$100bn, from Z$70bn last week.

Another weekly business and financial newspaper, the Zimbabwe Independent, raised its price to Z$70bn last week but did not increase the cover price this week.

Vincent Kahiya, the Zimbabwe Independent editor, wrote in his memo to readers titled, What is the price of a newspaper: “Last week, the cover price of the Zimbabwe went up to Z$70bn and the reaction from the readership was predictable. A regular reader confronted me with facts and figures on Saturday. He said the Independent now costs R20 or US$2.50 at the parallel rate conversion. He pointed out that the Star in South Africa cost R4,50, the Mail & Guardian R16.50 and the Sunday Times R12.50. I can as well add that the Washington Post cost US50c and USAToday US75c.

Kahiya said that the situation now regarding the pricing of newspapers resonated with what was occuring throughout the economy, saying there were fundamental problems in the economy, which had worsened since the March 29 elections and the subsequent disputed presidential election runoff on June 27.

Kahiya noted: “The problems in the newspaper sector are dire and worsening by the day. Advertisers and readers have no doubt been concerned at the movements in the cover prices and advertising rates of our newspapers.”

He said printing costs were the major driver of the current steep rise in cover prices and these had “necessitated a weekly increase in cover prices and advertising rates in order to cover these escalations in printing costs.”

Last year, the Zimbabwe Independent and The Financial Gazette traded on the black market due to overwhelming demand spurred by lower prices and hunger for news in a depleted market with only one state-owned national daily newspaper.

The two newspapers' executives were also briefly picked up by the police after increasing their cover prices without the NIPC's authority.