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Yoliswa Dube Chronicle Reporter
PEOPLE in Wanezi District in Matabeleland South province are set to benefit from the digital migration process as the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services will employ locals while preparation of sites and installation of digitalisation equipment gathers momentum.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) set the deadline of June 2015 for the migration from analogue broadcasting to digital terrestrial television (DTT).

Locals have in the past complained about being sidelined during the execution of important projects in their areas.

During a site inspection at Shamba Mountain recently, Matabeleland South provincial roads manager Aaron Macheke said the District Development Fund (DDF), in preparing sites for the digitalisation programme, would draw labour from the local community.

“This project will create employment as labour will be drawn from the local community. We’re going to need a lot of labour from both men and women,” said Macheke.

DDF has been constructing access roads to the site.

“The road clearing has been done and now we need to build cravats at strategic points. The only problem at the moment is machinery. No machine made by man can come up this mountain. It’s going to be labour intensive to move rocks and make room for the platform,” said Macheke during the inspection of the site that was also attended by Information Ministry principal director, Regis Chikowore and Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe chief executive officer, Obert Muganyura.

Muganyura said by June 17, none of the analogue transmitters should interfere with the digital services of neighbouring countries.

“In that regard, priority in terms of installation of that equipment to the existing sites has been given to analogue transmitter sites in border areas because they have the highest potential to cause interference to the digital services of neighbouring countries. We’ve identified Kamativi, Mutare and Nyanga as transmitters that would cause interference,” said Muganyura.

He said progress was being made in the preparation of transmitter sites and studio sites in anticipation of the installation of digital equipment with the development of access roads to the sites and power on course.

“We had a late start to the programme in terms of completion of contract negotiations and delays in terms of payments.”

Muganyura said the installation of the digital technology would increase the spectrum efficiency and the number of services that can be delivered on a single frequency.

The main reason for the world’s migration to digital is to release valuable spectrum which can be used for other services.

Spectrum is scarce therefore more efficient use of it is necessary if more terrestrial telecommunications and broadcasting services are to be made available.