Harare, (New Ziana) -Stakeholders in the media industry have expressed concern about the Broadcasting Services Amendment Bill which, among others, seeks to make it mandatory for motorists to buy the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) license fees before they can purchase vehicle licenses.
Presenting submissions to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Media, Information and Broadcasting Services in the capital on Monday, Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) secretary general Perfect Hlongwane, who was also representing the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ), said the proposed move is illogical and unfair to motorists and should not be implemented.
“Well, we think that we need to deal with first things first, and first things first is that we need to reform the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation so that we pay. Transform ZBC, hands off motorists and let Us reform ZBC to become a pure public broadcaster.
“So Section 38 (4) of the Bill makes it mandatory for motorists to pay ZBC licenses before being issued with vehicle licenses, we feel that, that must fall away,” he said.
He said section 14 and 15 on the new broadcasting licenses must conform with section 10 of the Bill for the national broadcaster to justify before the public, who are the owners of ZBC, on why they need new stations and new licenses.
Green Kunyeda who was representing the Media Monitors, concurred with Hlongwane, saying the approach to concentrate on motorists only to fund ZBC is not sustainable, and a violation of the rights of motorists.
He said those behind the crafting of the Bill should find ways to fund the public broadcaster including other broadcasting players through the broadcasting fund, using more diverse and inclusive model of taping into potential sources of revenue.
“Focusing on motorists alone is discriminatory and actually narrows the net. Why can’t we be finding other models where, for example, as we import television sets, people can be billed the license at the boarder then as the television set is sold, another way is found to generate that money,” he said.
Former ZBC senior employee Robson Mhandu said it is high time the government moves away from the spoon feeding approach in capacitating the national broadcaster, but let it be evaluated on its performance at the end of the year after being capacitated.
Mhandu also called for the ZBC to be governed by one Act unlike the current scenario where it is governed by the Broadcasting Services Act and the Commercialisation Act.
“The law currently says Zimbabwean citizens who are paying licenses, radio, television, they are paying for ownership of the gadgets, it doesn’t talk about the services provided, it doesn’t talk about other critical issues. Can we consider changing that to not just ownership of a gadget,” he said.
“You may own a gadget that is not functional, that is not working and you get harassed for ownership of that gadget.” Mhandu suggested that the government should go further and, after capacitating the national broadcaster, let it be evaluated and asked to pay a dividend to the state.
“We have capacitated you to do this, what have you done in terms of performance? There must be critical performance measurements for the national broadcaster,” he said.
Mhandu said the capacitation should also not be a seasonal approach where huge efforts to capacitate a national broadcaster are seen during elections time, but it should be seen to be carrying out its mandate professionally, and not to be seen to be important during election periods only.
New Ziana