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Government
tightening control of the airwaves
Media
Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly
Media Update 2005-48
Monday
December 12th – Sunday December 18th 2005
ASPIRING independent
broadcasters’ hopes of securing operating licences could well remain
a pipedream following Information Minister Tichaona Jokonya’s revelations
during the week that Transmedia, the country’s broadcasting signal
carrier, was "a creation of government"
and should therefore be "preoccupied with serving the
national interests as defined by government".
The Herald
and Chronicle (15/12), quoted Jokonya "reminding"
the Transmedia board of these "responsibilities", adding
that "your business makes you a strategic enterprise
with a heavy bearing on national security and development".
ZTV (14/12, 8pm) also reported his comments.
However, none
of these media attempted any interpretation of the minister’s remarks,
least of all within the context of how this perspective compromises
Zimbabweans’ rights to free expression, or even how they relate
to government’s rhetoric about freeing the airwaves. There was also
no explanation about Transmedia itself and why, in a democracy,
such an institution should be under such restrictive government
control. In addition, the papers did not seek a definition of the
components comprising the ‘national interests’ that the company
was obliged to follow, especially when similar specious terms have
been used previously to advance the sectional interests of the ruling
party.
But Jokonya’s
statements reinforced fears that government was tightening its control
of the airwaves, which, in practice, have still to be deregulated
despite the creation of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ)
three years ago purportedly to facilitate the entry of aspirant
private broadcasters.
These suspicions
were not helped by earlier calls made by ZANU PF deputy secretary
for information, Ephraim Masawi, at the ruling party conference
advocating the overhaul of information structures set up by former
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo (The Herald, Chronicle
[13/12] and The Daily Mirror [16/12]).
The Mirror
quoted Masawi ominously declaring that government should "weed
out all elements" that supported Moyo since he was
"doing things for his personal gain at the expense of
the government and people of Zimbabwe".
Again these
media did not raise an eyebrow as to why the authorities had not
corrected the anomaly at the time. Radio Zimbabwe (14/12), The
Herald and Chronicle (15/12) also passively reported
chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport
and Communication and Makonde, MP Leo Mugabe, rapping Moyo for creating
viability problems at ZBH when he unbundled the national broadcaster
into nine companies without providing seed capital.
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