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Minister Shamu, community radio initiatives in consultative meeting
Community Radio Harare (CORAH)
August 20, 2009

Community radio initiatives in Zimbabwe and the Minister of Media, Information and Publicity, Webster Shamu, yesterday met in Harare and held a consultative meeting to discuss issues that are of concern with respect to the issue of community broadcasting licensing.

The meeting was held at the invitation of Minister Shamu who said community radios could play an important role in the transformation of the society. "The government is in the process of seeing what can be done to satisfy the needs of our nation in terms of information, education and entertainment needs. Community radios can assist us in making sure that we are a successful nation and so today we have invited community radio initiatives as a special group of the media and see how we can move forward for the better of our country," said the Minister in his opening remarks.

Chairperson of Zimbabwe Association of Community Radio Stations (ZACRAS), Chris Mhike, told Minister Shamu that many community radio initiatives were prepared to broadcast but the issue of licensing was impacting negatively on them. "Community radio initiatives represented here are prepared to broadcast once they get broadcasting licences and so the government should urgently assist them. We are concerned that the national broadcaster, ZBC, reaches only 20% of the national population and therefore feel that community radios can fill in that gap and ensure that there is free flow of information to all the people of Zimbabwe," said Mhike.

Besnath Dube of Hwange Community Radio who attended the meeting said it was good that the government has recognized the existence of community radio initiatives in the country. "We are happy that the government has recognized our existence and this invitation that they extended to us is testimony that things might be turning and we are sure we will get licences once BAZ is constituted as the minister promised," commended Dube.

Other issues that were discussed include that of ensuring that all parts of the country have a community radio, the need to do a needs assessment in areas that community radios want to operate and also that these radio initiatives should wait for the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) to invite them to submit applications as BAZ is already working towards that.

Community radio initiatives that attended the meeting include those from Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare, Hwange, Masvingo, Kwekwe, Kadoma and Gweru.

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