Attorney-General yet to gazette media accreditation fees

THE Attorney-General is yet to gazette the 2022 media accreditation fees despite receiving the enabling statutory instrument from the Information ministry in November last year.

The gazetting will enable media practitioners to obtain accreditation cards for 2022. Journalists are currently using expired 2021 accreditation cards.

On January 25, 2022, Media Institute of Sothern Africa (Misa-Zimbabwe) chairperson Golden Maunganidze wrote to clerk of Parliament Kennedy Chokuda requesting Parliament to compel the ministry to expedite the gazetting of accreditation fees.

Chokuda wrote back this week saying the AttorneyGeneral was yet to gazette the fees.

“The (Information and Media Portfolio) committee would like to inform you that the ministry has indicated that it submitted the statutory instrument on media accreditation fees to the Attorney-General’s office for examination and gazetting on November 23, 2021,” Chokuda said in a letter dated March 29, 2022.

“Follow-ups were made with the office and indications were that they were still working on the statutory instrument. The committee is eagerly waiting for the fees to be gazetted and it will continue to engage the ministry on the matter.”

Maunganidze told NewsDay that the delay in issuing new accreditation cards had resulted in media practitioners being barred from covering some events.

“We are demanding that the government should deal with the issuance of accreditation cards with urgency. Journalists should be able to obtain accreditation as soon as it expires.

“This will enable them to freely conduct their duties without hindrance or the possibility that they will be barred from covering some events. Journalists who started practising in January this year are not able to cover some events because they are not accredited, which is a huge blow to dissemination and access to information,” Maunganidze said.