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Nyemudzai Kakore Harare Bureau
Senior Minister of State Ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo has berated the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation for premising some of its programming on “rumours”. Ambassador Moyo told delegates to the e-Tech Africa Expo 2014 and National Information Communication Technology Postal and Courier Services policy framework consultative conference in Harare yesterday that the national broadcaster should “have a basic affection for distinguishing rumour from truth”.
“There are a number of programmes sometimes which you wonder whether they are necessary real because they are based on rumour,” he said.
“. . . we are not in an era of rumour-mongering; we are in an era of being factual and science must take centre stage.”
ZBC has over the last few months been under fire from government after it went through a serious leadership and managerial crisis which compromised its capacity to effectively and meaningfully discharge its mandate.
The national broadcaster failed to pay workers for several months.
The Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Ministry has recently been working to improve the performance of the parastatal.
The Comptroller and Auditor-General appointed KPMG Chartered Accountants (Zimbabwe) to conduct a forensic and turnaround audit of ZBC.
The firm is expected to submit a comprehensive audit report to the Auditor-General by the end of this month.
Ambassador Moyo said ZBC should promote coverage of the ICT sector.
“So if ZBC can slot a programme of 30 minutes dedicated to ICTs, surely it will find time to educate us all on the challenges of ICTs,” he said.
“I am a man of action and it must be done. To pay for it doesn’t matter, we need a slot for 30 minutes. I hope very soon that the nation would be gluing its eyes on an ICT programme every week.”
However, secretary for ICT, Postal and Courier Services, Engineer Sam Kundishora, said they did not have the resources to run a 30-minute ICT programme on television.
“The proposal for a slot is welcome but the ministry on its own has no resources,” he said. “We will have to appeal to all the stakeholders on how best we can put our heads together to try and put the request by the minister into practice.”
Online Reporter