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The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) says it had received 21 applications for radio licences at the close of its deadline on January 7, 2014.BAZ chief executive officer Mr Obert Muganyura said this was a better response compared to previous invitations.
As expected, Harare and Bulawayo had the highest, and almost equal, number of applications for the local commercial radio licences. This is because as the two largest cities they are likely to have more people with the resources to finance such projects.
We want to commend Government for taking this bold step to introduce more commercial radio stations. For a start, there can be no denying that there is an element of enlightened self-interest if these stations prosper. Pirate radio stations will die a natural death.
One of the reasons raised over the years to try and justify this intrusion by America and Britain into our airwaves was allegedly to provide variety or alternative voices beside the public broadcaster.
Figuratively, Zimbabwe has remained landlocked for far too long in its airwaves. Launching of community radio stations will also create employment.
Some of these graduates have been manipulated and engaged by the said pirate radio stations to denigrate their country. It is time their country gave them something useful to do.
It is also our hope that for its part BAZ will be as transparent as possible in the adjudication process on who gets a licence and who doesn’t. We believe those who applied followed the guidelines supplied by BAZ.
The idea is to avoid the controversy which followed the granting of radio licences to Star FM and Zi-FM. Those who failed to follow the guidelines and fail to meet the set criteria should not raise frivolous complaints just to blemish Zimbabwe’s name.
Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo has made every effort to reduce media polarisation in the country which was a product of a toxic brand of opposition politics where anything and everything anti-Zimbabwe was a bestseller.
It is in this regard that we want to believe that all applications for community radio stations were made in good faith and are meant for the commonweal and Zimbabwe in general. There is a tendency for communities to become insular and view national authority as intrusive once they have local radio stations.
Such an attitude would be a betrayal of the trust Government has exercised in trying to open up the airwaves and promote transparency and allow people to freely express and channel their concerns in a localised environment.
We have no doubt that once people approach this project with a positive spirit, together we can come up with a national vision which should propel our nation forward. Those localised conversations about where we want to take our country to should coalesce into a shared national vision which has henceforth eluded our nation.
We should from these little conversations with ourselves be able to define the national interest – that for which we are all ready to sacrifice our lives, so that at the end of the day we emerge a stronger Zimbabwe.
The point we are making is a simple one: local radio stations can be used either for ill or for good. They can be used positively to express and capture people’s views for their own good and that of the nation.
Alternatively, they can be used as an excuse by unscrupulous opportunists to promote divisive sectarian or regional interests.
In short, these radio licences, to whoever they are finally issued, come with a huge responsibility.
Freedom without responsibility is dangerous and we believe Government has taken this risk to open the airwaves in the sincere hope that those applying for them are mature enough to use them responsibly.
Online Reporter