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Weekly Media Review 2011-14
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday April 4th - Sunday April 11th 2011
April 15, 2011

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CORAH seeks radio licence

Another battle to open up the airwaves to independent broadcasters has spilt into the courts after the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), the licensing authority, reportedly turned down an application to run a community radio station by the aspiring broadcaster, Community Radio Harare (CORAH).

The Zimbabwean on Sunday (10/8) reported CORAH as having taken BAZ and Information Minister Webster Shamu - in his official capacity as the minister responsible for the conduct of the regulatory board - to the High Court seeking relief to have its broadcasting licence issued. CORAH also wants the Court to compel BAZ to call for broadcasting licence applications, which, it says, should be done at least twice a year.

The paper reported that CORAH's lawsuit came after BAZ rejected its application for a broadcasting licence on January 24, 2011 "on the grounds that there had been no call for licences as provided for under section 10 of the BSA (Broadcasting Services Act), which states that applications can only be received and processed after BAZ has made an invitation for such applications". CORAH'S application was made on September 28 last year.

Last year, The Herald (7/10/2010) reported that Shamu had "urged" the BAZ to licence more radio and TV stations "in order to provide remote areas of the country with access to information" at a BAZ strategic meeting held in Harare. The paper quoted him saying: "Universal access to broadcasting services has remained on the government's wish list for the past two decades, but regrettably little progress has been made in that direction."

Earlier last year, NewsDay (16/8/2010) reported the minister saying BAZ would start licensing new broadcasters once its disputed board had been reconstituted when commissioning new radio and TV transmission equipment in Plumtree. "Once President Mugabe is done with the announcement of that authority's board, we will move to issue licences to deserving radio and television stations."

In its court application, CORAH contends that it has not been possible to apply for a licence since BAZ has not called for applications for community radio stations since 2004 and that the authority's failure to call and issue licences "is on its own an illegality and must be justified".

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