Recently launched state radio signals reluctance to open up airwaves

By Lance Guma
05 August 2010

Voice of Zimbabwe, a state controlled shortwave radio service, was launched last week Friday in Gweru and has signaled ZANU PF's reluctance to open up the airwaves. The station is reported to have been set up in 2007 with its general manager Happison Muchechetere saying they would carry out test runs before the actual programming started. Four years later it would seem they have finally managed to produce some programming.

Speaking to Newsreel on Thursday the national chairman of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), Loughty Dube, said; 'What that means is that in essence there are no new players. What the government has done is to move tentacles into a space which they already occupy.' He said Voice of Zimbabwe could not be called 'an additional voice' but rather a repetition of all the other 4 ZBC stations.

Dube said MISA has called on the coalition government to free the airwaves and allow for the entry of new players in the broadcasting sector, in line with the three-tier broadcasting system stipulated under the African Charter. He said they should allow community broadcasters, transform the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) from a state to a public broadcaster and also allow commercial broadcasters.
While MISA says it welcomes the recent licensing of four newspapers by the Zimbabwe Media Commission, this should be extended to the broadcasting sector. Dube however expressed reservations this would happen with Tafataona Mahoso heading the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), given his history as a 'media hangman' who shut down many newspapers.

The Broadcasting Authority was set up 9 years ago and to date has not licenced a single independent broadcaster. A MISA statement recently pointed out that 'Zimbabwe has the dubious distinction of being among the very few African countries without privately owned commercial television and radio stations as well as community radio stations, 30 years after independence from colonial rule.'

So did the two MDC formations miss a trick in not using their parliamentary majority to repeal these repressive media laws that entrench the ZANU PF media monopoly? Dube said the GPA agreement had set out a proper framework to open up the airwaves, but like all other GPA issues no proper guidelines for implementation were put in place.

Source: http://www.swradioafrica.com/news050810/recent050810.htm

(Yimber Gaviria, Colombia)