Govt committed to improve radio, TV coverage: Shamu

television and radio coverage in the country, Media, Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu has said.
Minister Shamu said this while commissioning transmission equipment for eight community radio stations at Pockets Hills yesterday. The equipment was acquired by TransMedia from India and Canada.
“Our priority is to achieve universal access starting with existing services. Whereas colonial governments started from the centre, we start from the periphery so that we can reverse this negative bequest from a hostile history,” Minister Shamu said.
He said Government wanted to ensure that outlying areas such as Beitbridge, Mudzi, Victoria Falls, Plumtree and Mt Darwin received coverage.
“All this is over and above the sterling work the corporation is doing in revamping the national broadcasting transmission grid which had declined precipitously over the years,” Minister Shamu said.
He said he was pleased with the progress made so far as eight new digital compliant transmitters had been commissioned in Beitbridge. The Minister said Transmedia had also embarked on refurbishment and digitalisation of its sites dotted countrywide to improve service. He noted that ZBC was not getting any funding from Government hence its efforts of revamping its equipment was slow.
Minister Shamu said he hoped that friendly countries such as the Islamic Republic of Iran would continue to support the national broadcaster’s digitalisation project. He said there was commitment in Sadc to complete the transition from analogue to digital platform by 2013 ahead of the world deadline of 2015.
“This is a firm commitment we have made as a country, which therefore we must make good. The switch over to digital technology means better and more versatile broadcast services to our country and people,” he said.
The minister also noted that there was need to put rural communities on the network.
“We have communities, which are cut out from national conversation, communities which therefore, have been denationlaised.
“It is this anomaly which inspired a corrective broadcast policy which translates into the kind of infrastructural activity we see Transmedia seized with,” he said.
He said the thrust towards community broadcasting was meant to give historically disadvantaged rural communities a voice, power and control over their programme content.
“As with the broader policy of achieving universal access and correcting historical imbalances, we will start from the broadcast shadows zones in all our provinces,” he said.
Minister Shamu said his ministry was in the process of identifying eight areas in the country’s metropolitan provinces where the pilot stations would be installed. Transmedia board chairman, Dr Paul Chimedza, said the equipment would go a long way in improving coverage of the country particularly the rural communities. Media, Information and Publicity secretary, Mr George Charamba, Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe chairman, Dr Tafataona Mahoso, Transmedia chief executive Mrs Florence Sigudu-Matambo and other officials from the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe and ZBC attended the event.