No community radios for Mat South

Wednesday, the seventh of this month was the deadline for submission of applications for the provision of local commercial radio broadcasting services. By close of business on the 7th, 21 applications had been tendered with no application from Matebeleland South province.

The applications were invited in October last year by the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) and were open to anyone or group wishing to submit an application for consideration.

BAZ says it has received 21 applications from nine out of the 25 areas that were open to applications.

The areas and number of applications received are as follows: Harare six; Bulawayo five; Gweru one; Masvingo one; Mutare two; Lupane two; Victoria Falls two; Zvishavane one and Bindura one.

Local commercial radio broadcasting services are radio stations that are received within a 40-kilometre radius of the designated area and are operated on profit making basis.

In a Facebook posting, one of Matebeleland South's advocates for the province's development Mr Bekezela Maduma Fuzwayo says that it is a sad development that the province failed to put an application through. According to Maduma Fuzwayo community radio stations project cannot be fully achieved without radio stations from what he calls the rainbow province of Zimbabwe.

"Its sad to read that Matebeleland South the real rainbow province of Zimbabwe failed to submit an application for a community radio station." "Of the 16 officially recognised languages in the Constitution, Mat South has nine of the languages and cultures. There is Venda, Shangani, Sotho, Tswana, Xhosa, Koisan, Kalanga, Ndebele and English in the province and here is a chance for us to grab and develop our languages and cultures but we let it pass through." Added the statement.

Because of the diversity of the province Fuzwayo feels that the province should be seen to be the one taking the lead in the community radio stations initiative to boast the languages and cultures from the province.

"Whether the deadline for submission of applications has passed or not passed Mat South's application must be accepted anytime because without a Mat South community radio there is no community radio stations."

The licencing of the community commercial radio stations comes at a time when the Zimbabwe Association for Community Radio Stations (ZACRAS) has been lobbying for the urgent opening of the broadcasting airwaves. Zenzele Ndebele of Bulawayo Dialogue has also encouraged government to speed up the licencing of the radio stations to reduce the number of pirate radio stations throwing in sometimes unregulated information into the country from outside the country.

However, in a statement recently, Jonathan Moyo, minister of Media, Information and Broadcasting Services, said community radio stations were not a priority for government as there were other pressing media issues to deal with.

“For Zimbabwe, the priority at the moment is not community radio stations, there are other things we are still dealing with,” he said at the regional media conference hosted by Silveria House in Harare recently.