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Nqobile Tshili
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INFORMATION, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Senator Monica Mutsvangwa will tomorrow preside over the inaugural high-level Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) Media Indaba in Bulawayo to enhance the framing of the national development agenda and buttress the country’s drive towards realisation of an upper middle-income economy vision by 2030.

Guided by the National Development Strategy (NDS1), the media industry is expected to play a key role in shaping the national development discourse by aiding conducive image-building and stakeholder awareness, as critical building blocks towards transforming the country.

As the country’s prime trade and investment platform, the ZITF presents a grand opportunity for Zimbabwe to showcase its products and services as well as engage with key local and foreign economic stakeholders.

This year’s trade showcase is running under the theme: “Continuous Innovation, Global Competitiveness,” and has attracted 533 direct local and foreign exhibitors with 21 countries participating from 13 last year.

Speaking to journalists in Bulawayo yesterday, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary, Mr Nick Mangwana, said the ministry was riding on the ZITF expo to showcase the development milestones it achieved under the Second Republic. The hosting of the Media Indaba, thus, will further galvanize the national development agenda and rally stakeholders to play their part in ensuring the attainment of the national vision.

Hence tomorrow’s Media Indaba will be attended by industry executives, academia, content producers, and journalists, among others under the theme: “Promoting Media Reforms for Equal Access to Information.”

This comes as the Second Republic has been credited for opening up the media space through the licensing of community radio stations and commercial television stations.“We are targeting to enable the media sector to articulate, represent, and advance its cause in framing the national development discourse. This indaba will be at the National Gallery on Thursday from 2PM to 5PM.

“Everything that we do as Government and as citizens is about delivery of a national vision and aspiration, which is Vision 2030. The building block towards Vision 2030 is initially the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) and the National Development Strategy 1 (NSD-1) and NDS-2.

“We are in NDS 1. So, every exhibition is a building block to the attainment of that vision, that’s the national narrative, which we expect all the partners that we have here to be building to,” said Mr Mangwana.

“Now the trend that you should be setting as the media is the attainment of that national aspiration, which is that aspiration for you and I.”

The Permanent Secretary said the ministry will use the ZITF period to showcase the successes achieved in the past five years. Among the exhibitors in the ministry’s stands are radio and television stations that were licensed under the Second Republic. For the first time in history, the Government has already licensed six television stations and some of them are already broadcasting.

Some of the stations exhibiting in the ministry’s stand are ZTN, owned by Zimpapers, ZBC News 24, KeYona TV, NRTV, Skyz Metro and GZU Campus Radio. Mr Mangwana said the Government has procured set-top boxes (decoders), which will enable members of the public to access some of the new television stations.

“They have brought set-top boxes because that is the gap to having these platforms, most of these television stations are on DSTV. But we do understand that a lot of our members of the public cannot have access to DSTV,” he said.

“Therefore, we need a cheaper platform. Therefore, we have the set-top boxes that will be on sale during this exhibition. The ministry itself will have some of them to help give access. But we have thousands of them that have been brought by the Government ready to be distributed a nominal fee.”

Mr Mangwana said the ministry’s digitalisation programme was being stalled largely due to funding challenges.

“The digitization programme is around 42 percent, it’s a highly capital-intensive programme but, therefore, due to limited resources and contesting interest we have not gone as far as we want and wish to be,” he said.

Mr Mangwana said the licensing of new players will depend on the availability of spectrum.

“This means for example if you license a provincial station, we are going to cannibalise a lot of other frequencies in there. So, we will have less. So, we tend to license and help with establishment and sustainability, review and then go back and license again depending on the availability of the spectrum,” he said.

“But the intention is to have so many other genres of stations in this country including community television stations and provincial television stations, as long as the appetite is out there.”

Speaking during the same presser, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Deputy Minister, Kindness Paradza said the Government was amending media laws to support the sustainability of newly licensed community radio stations,

“We are in the process of amending Broadcasting Services Act so that we address some of the challenges obtaining in the industry. Under the same act, there is the Broadcasting Services Media Fund. We are going to use that fund to finance community radio stations,” he said.

“They will also have access to Government adverts, which will enable their sustainability,” said Deputy Minister Paradza.

“We want the public to have access to Government programmes. So, all community radio stations will be supported.”

He said as part of inclusive development, seven of the 14 licensed community radio stations are in Matabeleland region, which previously was perceived to be marginalised.

“These radio stations are going to broadcast in all the languages that are spoken in Matabeleland region. After that we will sit and decide if there are any new licenses that need to be issued,” he said.
Radio stations that were licensed in the region are Radio Bukalanga (Pvt) Ltd (Bulilima), Matobo Community Radio Trust (Maphisa, Mangwe, Brunapeg) and Twasumbuka Community Radio Trust (Binga, Kamativi, Siabuwa), Mbembesi Development Trust, trading as Ingqanga FM; Ntepe Manama Community Radio Trust, Shashe Community Radio Broadcasting Association in Beitbridge and Lyeja- Nyayi Development Trust in Hwange.

Deputy Minister Paradza said there is a scope for the licensing of community and provincial television stations. – @nqotshili