Harare — In a move that has been taken with a pinch of salt by local pro-democracy activists, the Zimbabwean regime on November 20 announced that it had dished out broadcasting licenses to six more television stations out of the 14 that had applied to be licensed.
Presently, just the Zimbabwe Television run by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation is the only national television station in Zimbabwe.
Amongst the successful applicants for a license, was the State-controlled, Zimpapers Television Network (ZTN).
ZTN is a sister company of the Zimbabwe Newspapers 1980 Private Limited, controlled by this country’s government notorious for stifling media democracy for decades.
Owned by business tycoon James Makamba, Zimbabwe’s only privately owned broadcasting station, Joy TV, which started in July 1998 was shut down on 31 May 2002 after a lease agreement the TV station had with the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation was annulled on the grounds that it desecrated the 2001 Broadcasting Services Act of this country.
Two decades later, Zimbabwe’s regime has licensed other players in the television broadcasting industry, however with pro-democracy activists skeptical about the government’s sincerity in its move to license the new players.
“The regime has merely licensed its own TV stations that will further step up praise-singing for it (the regime) as it perpetuates more rights abuses here,” Claris Madhuku who heads the Platform for Youth Development, told Ubuntu Times.
Under Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s rule, journalists like Hopewell Chin’ono have been arrested ostensibly for inciting public violence although he had mid this year exposed alleged government corruption involving Coronavirus supplies implicating the President’s son Colin Mnangagwa.
However, announcing the licensing of the six TV stations, Charles Sibanda, chairman of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), hailed the move which he said was the liberation of airwaves in the African nation.
“The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe would like to express appreciation to all those who showed interest and indeed the general public for actively participating in this historic process of facilitating the opening up of broadcasting airwaves for multiplicity in television services,” Sibanda told reporters in the capital Harare.
But other applicants like Heart & Soul Television which is owned by Trevor Ncube one of President Mnangagwa’s advisors, was not amongst the successful applicants although Jester Media trading as 3K TV managed to get a license despite the fact that the company falls under the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) which publishes the Daily News, an anti-government newspaper.
Ncube is the owner of Alpha Media Holdings which publishes newspapers deemed to be hostile to the Zimbabwean regime — Newsday, The Zimbabwe Independent, and The Standard.
Other TV stations that were given licenses are Rusununguko Media’s NRTV, Acacia Media Group’s Kumba TV, Fairtalk Communications’ Ke Yona TV, and Channel Dzimbahwe’s Channel D.