Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary Cde George Charamba addresses journalists and TransMedia officials at Manjolo Base Station in Binga yesterday
Leonard Ncube in Binga
THE country’s ongoing digitalisation process will result in the creation of thousands of job opportunities in the media industry in line with the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-economic Transformation (ZimAsset) objectives, a senior official said yesterday.
Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary Cde George Charamba, who is on a tour of the country’s provinces to gauge progress in civil works taking place at base stations, said the programme was hinged on Zim-Asset’s infrastructure development cluster.
Zimbabwe is in the process of installing digital transmitters as the country strives to complete the digitalisation process before the end of the year.
Cde Charamba said three top class international standard studios would be established in Bulawayo, Harare and Victoria Falls with satellite studios in every province, to ensure continous high quality local productions.
“The screen must be a sum total of communities with the Tonga or any other community having a studio that produces a local product to allow them to go on national dish. I therefore badly need engineers, producers, directors, cameramen, editors and artistes for drama, music, film and so on. We must trigger the art industry in a mosaic way where we draw from every culture and work together because this is a sensitive area,” he said.
Cde Charamba said once completed, the process would ensure local programming while there would also be some platforms for foreign productions.
He said: “Taxpayers’ money can’t be used to import foreign culture that will degrade local culture.”
Cde Charamba said the whole process would result in downstream employment creation for media players and engineers, adding that the country has talent which has not been complemented with equipment to be vibrant.
He was accompanied by engineers from TransMedia, ZBC and Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe and their chief executives Florence Sigudu-Matambo (TransMedia) and Obert Muganyura (BAZ) and has so far toured four provinces — Matabeleland South, Midlands, Manicaland and Matabeleland North.
“We’re here to gauge progress as we want to go digital on satellite with four legs of Zim-Asset. We’re laying infrastructure for broadcasting and once we’re done we expect a whole new industry in film, radio, TV broadcasting,” said Cde Charamba.
He said the government, although lagging behind other countries in digitalisation, had a content model which would empower all sectors of the media.
Cde Charamba said the digitalisation process, through Huawei the contractor, would not fail compared to previous attempts with Iran where the country moved to acquire equipment before capacitating engineers.
He said 34 engineers were being trained so there is continuity after the process is completed.
Turning to progress on the transmitter sites, Cde Charamba said there was a need to up the game on civil works which may be disturbed by the next rainy season if the process is not complete.
At Manjolo Base Station, workmen were busy digging where footing for the transmitter would be erected while at Kamativi the transmitter would be at the existing structure.
The team failed to visit a site at Kenmaur in Lupane.
Cde Charamba said the components of the project included stringing of the sites in such a way that they are connected through a network.
He said there was a need for a fibre-optic backbone to be done by TelOne, as he implored government agencies to pull together in Zim-Asset projects.
“As we pull the fibre network to service broadcasting, we’re extending the fibre-optic network beyond urban areas and border areas which were historically disadvantaged. The other component which is at the heart of the project is the uplink facility to be erected at Pockets Hills Studios,” he said.
Cde Charamba said another component involved inclusion of mediating gadgets in the form of TV set-top boxes whose samples have been acquired and are being tested.
A total of 400,000 set-top boxes had been ordered, he said, which would enable receivers to use their old TV gadgets once analogue is switched off for digital transmission.
Cde Charamba said the government would subsidise the gadgets so that no one is left out on the grounds of affordability. TransMedia chief executive Sigudu-Matambo said their mandate was to make sure every part of the country receives transmission.
Most parts of the country especially in rural Matabeleland region have never received either radio or TV transmission and Sigudu-Matambo said that would be a thing of the past once digitalisation is complete as migration from analogue to digital transmission would increase coverage.