A day after being sworn into office, Jameson Timba, the Deputy Minister of Media, Information and Publicity says his immediate task will be to restore media freedom in the country.

He said this will include working on the immediate return of closed publications and the freeing of the airwaves. Timba will work alongside ZANU PF Minister Webster Shamu, who has reportedly ordered the state media to start reforming by toning down it's inflammatory language against the MDC.

It is understood Timba, the outgoing chairman of the Association of Private Schools and a media columnist, has laid out a plan that he has already presented to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that will involve asking Parliament to repeal the government's tough media legislation. He has also promised to look into the issue of banned international news organisations such as the BBC and CNN. He has pointed out that the Global Political Agreement, signed by all parties to the inclusive government, calls for the country's tough media laws to be changed and to allow private radio, television and daily newspapers to operate under a unity government.

Zimbabwe's Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), is currently one of the harshest media laws in the world, under which journalists can be jailed for two years for working without a licence from the state Media and Information Commission.

The Criminal Codification Act imposes sentences of up to 20 years in jail on journalists or other citizens, convicted of publishing false information or statements that are prejudicial to the state.

A source told us the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists was preparing to make its representations to the new ministers, on the need to speed up the process and ensure they start work on the deregulation of the draconian media laws.

Sunsley Chamunorwa, a former editor of the Financial Gazette, said; 'If the state media can criticise the government and report things as they are and allow other media players to operate, only then can we say there seems to be some kind of reform in the country.'

Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF government, which has in the last five years banned four newspapers, including the country's biggest daily paper, The Daily News, is regarded as one of the most media repressive regimes in the world. Broadcasting regulations ensure that no one is able to set up an independent radio station.

The country has two daily papers, both of them owned by the government.

The government-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings operates four radio and one television station, all tightly controlled by the Ministry of Information.

The media sub-committee of the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) told us last week it would meet with the new information minister as soon as he was appointed, to start working on the reforms. But many observers are concerned that the appointment of Webster Shamu as Information Minister, the government has no real intention of reform and it will be extremely difficult to enforce changes.

JOMIC is a special multi-party taskforce mandated with supervising the implementation of the inclusive government. In theory this includes working to ensure the immediate processing by the appropriate authorities of all applications for re-registration and registration, in terms of both the Broadcasting Services Act as well as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.