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Bulawayo Bureau
THE Second Republic has given a voice to previously marginalised communities to determine their development agenda following the licencing of community radio stations in local languages.
Government licenced 14 community radio stations and the majority of them are located in Matabeleland.
Zimbabwe’s information dissemination was previously centralised in cities and rural communities were on the margins.
But since the coming in of the Second Republic led by President Mnangagwa, Government has opened up the broadcasting sector and for the first time in history Zimbabwe has matched the international broadcasting tiers of having public, commercial and community broadcast media.
The country today joins the rest of the world in commemorating World Radio Day at a time when Government has committed to further opening up the broadcast sector in pursuit of the country’s development. The radio day commemorations are running under the theme Radio for Peace.
In an interview yesterday, Information, Publicity and Broadcast Services Deputy Minister Kindness Paradza said Government valued the power of radio considering that it was an important developmental tool.
He said licencing of community radio stations showed the country’s commitment to investing in an informed citizenry.
“We have licenced 14 community radios and half of those are in the Matabeleland region,” said Deputy Minister Paradza.
“On Saturday, we are going to launch Shashe-Beitbridge Community Radio. Our focus is to increase as soon as these 14 are on air we issue more licenses and this time around taking into consideration community of interests.
“These were all language based and as far as we are concerned, we have covered all the 16 languages in the Constitution and now we are going for community of interest including some prominent dialects.”
Deputy Minister Paradza said the theme for the commemoration was in sync with the national discourse of peace for development. He said preaching peace was important as the country was inching towards elections.
“In terms of the theme, the President is always saying this is an election season so he is preaching to all of us.
“So it is our hope as a Ministry and Government that we preach peace as we go to elections to be held between July and August,” said Deputy Minister Paradza.
He said the programming of community radio stations should reflect the aspirations of the localities they operated from.
Deputy Minister Paradza said Government was reviewing legislation relating to the broadcasting sector to attract more investors.
He said licencing of more radio stations was expected to enhance the country’s democratic space.
“The more radios we have the better for democracy. You are aware that Zimbabwe was the first country to introduce radio in 1933 and television in 1960 ahead of South Africa and countries in the region.
“But over the years, we have lagged behind so we are trying to catch up and even overtake our colleagues in the region.
“In terms of democracy, these are community radio stations and the communities are going to produce content for their own good and development and we have democratised the media landscape.”
Broadcasting players operating community radio stations have commended Government for spreading information to previously forgotten communities.
Gwanda’s Ntepe-Manama Radio station manager Mr Mvelo Zondo said their radio station which broadcasts in Sotho and IsiNdebele was a development tool and the community was feeling the impact of having its local radio station.
“We want to express gratitude to the Government for opening up radio airwaves,” he said.
“Importantly, these radios were awarded to marginalised communities that did not have access to national radio airwaves. The community radio is important for information dissemination and cultural and language preservation for the marginalised communities. As Ntepe-Manama Radio we are even giving voices to rural artists whose talents were not showcased by the national stations.”
Mr Zondo said Ntepe-Manama Radio also broadcasts to livestock farmers and their programming addresses the needs of the community.
“So now there is easy dissemination of information relating to livestock and we broadcast information that is key is busting livestock theft, even issues to do with animal vaccination are shared to communities. Even issues to do with inputs distribution, health related matters are readily available so we can say the community radio is key to community development,” he said.
Beitbridge based community radio station, Lotsha FM board chairman Mr Mekia Muyambo said they wanted to launch their station today to coincide with World Radio Day commemorations, but due to unforeseen issues they have rescheduled to Saturday.
He said community radio is important for the preservation of the Venda language spoken in Beitbridge.
“We are really excited to have our radio station as we are going to be broadcasting on issues that are happening in our community. We did not really get much coverage in national radios. We are going to speak about our challenges as well as educate and entertain,” said Mr Muyambo.
He said the radio station will enable the Beitbridge community to market economic opportunities that exist in the district. His sentiments were shared by Mr Thulani Muyandi the station manager of Lyeja Fm, a community radio station based in Hwange.
He said the community radio station has given a voice to locals.
“In the past we did not have reliable access to radio. Some areas could access national stations but other areas were blacked out. But now we are enjoying broadcasting in our local languages which includes Nambya, Nyanja, Chewa and IsiNdebele. The community media has closed information that existed nationally and locally,” said Mr Muyandi.ac
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