The MIBS Director for Press, Public Relations and Planning, Juliana
Mwila, confirmed the development in a telephone interview with
MISA-Zambia on 26 February 2009.
Mwila said the decision was linked to President Rupiah Banda's address
to Parliament on 16 January in which he announced that the government
would review the licensing framework to allow existing and new
broadcasters, in both radio and television, to cover more of the
country in terms of signal coverage. During the address, the president
also promised that the government would make appointments to the boards
of both the IBA and the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC)
in 2009.
She said that until a new licensing framework has been established,
there will be no granting of new licenses. We are only giving licenses
to those that applied sometime back and not new ones. New ones will
have to wait for the new licensing framework, she said.
Asked when the IBA will be established, Mwila could not give a
timeframe but said progress had been made towards the establishment of
the long awaited broadcast regulatory authority. There is a lot of
progress. A Cab Memo (Cabinet Memorandum) has already been circulated.
Very soon Cabinet will sit and then we will proceed, she said before
hastily ending the conversation.
MISA-Zambia was following up complaints from some new applicants who
feel this might be a deliberate ploy by the government to prevent new
applicants from entering the market.
Regulation of broadcasting in Zambia has been undertaken by MIBS in a
caretaker capacity pending the establishment of the IBA that has
dragged on since 2002 when the IBA Act No. 17 of 2002 was accented to
by late president Levy Mwanawasa.