admin
Midlands Correspondent
COMMUNITY radio initiatives should be reconstituted before they are licensed, Media, Information and Broadcasting Services permanent secretary George Charamba said yesterday.
He was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the Midlands State University International Diversity Festival in Gweru.
The Zimbabwe Association of Community Radio Stations (ZACRAS), an umbrella body of 17 community radio initiatives, has been on a campaign to compel the government to issue community radio licenses.
Charamba said the existing set up of community radios excludes other interest groups of the community.
He said: “When you raise issues of community radios, then you should have community empowerment in mind. This is where I’ve a big fight with a movement which advocates for community radio stations because their current set up excludes many interest groups.
“The ministry’s position on the licensing of community radios is that the community should reconstitute itself in a way which recognises the chiefs, village heads, women groups, the youth, farmers and church leaders. In that way we are issuing a license to the community.”
The permanent secretary said ZACRAS has played its part in raising awareness on the need to license community radio stations. He said government will soon make ZACRAS irrelevant by issuing licenses to community radios.
Turning to the country’s media laws, Charamba said laws will be realigned with the new constitution. He added that the realignment of the country’s media laws will also be aided by findings from the Information and Media Panel of Inquiry (IMPI) which is currently holding consultation meetings across the country on the state of the media.
Said Charamba: “Remember you don’t cut the foot to fit the shoe, but it’s the other way. If testimonies from the IMPI outreach say the media laws are inadequate or restrictive in certain areas, then we’ve to revisit that law.
“IMPI is carrying out its mandate at a time the country is in the process of realigning its laws to the new constitution. In our case, we said ‘rather than doing it blindly, why don’t we get a compass from IMPI so that we’re doing the revision of the laws in a way that is consistent to the expectation of society?’.”
Online Reporter