The issue of media reforms has been one of the contentious issues haunting the Government of National Unity. Many years of campaigning to free the airwaves have only resulted in the birth of two radio stations: ZiFM and Star FM, both alleged to be affiliated and propagating the Zanu (PF) agenda.
“Our organisation contests the current blatant denial by PORTRAZ to assize the transmission equipment of already established community radio stations. The coming in of the new constitution should address this gap to ensure that citizens enjoy their right to information as enshrined in local, regional and international conventions and charters,” Mabhachi said.
He told The Zimbabwean that the country’s Very High Frequency spectrum used for both television and sound broadcasting in Zimbabwe had the capacity to accommodate more operators.
“MTT is reliably informed of the availability of band 1, previously used by Zimbabwe’s main broadcaster to air channels 3 and 4. We are aware that it was surrendered by Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings back to POTRAZ and that it is currently empty,” said Mabhachi.
“There is plenty of available space, because even channel separation is at 0.5MHz nationwide, so there is enough space to accommodate other players without experiencing co-channel interference or crosstalk,” he added.
He cited Kenya and South Africa as examples of countries which had fully utilised the analogue system to carry more than 10 radio stations and expressed concern at the purported frequency spectrum saturation on television transmission under the current analogue system.
“We have nine channels available in the VHF band 3 spectrum, which is designated for TV transmission under the analogue system. Only channel five for TV 1 and channel 8 for ZTV 2 are occupied, which means that there are seven channels unoccupied in Harare only. We also have eight unused channels nationwide since TV 2 covers Harare and its environs.”
He dismissed the assertion by the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe that it would only be able to provide a three-tier system of broadcasting when the nation digitises and said this was aimed at denying people access to information especially on elections. “The just ended voter registration that began on April 29 to May 19, 2013 was generally hampered by lack of information on the dates, centres and the requirements for registration among communities. If we had community radio stations, citizens would have been more informed on the exercise,” he said.
Post published in: News