Stop shedding crocodile tears

What is coming to the fore “in the public domain” is that the radio broadcasting licences were issued to institutions/persons heavily aligned to Zanu-PF or subscribe to the Zanu-PF ideologies. Secondly, the legality of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) is also being challenged, with the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) formations claiming that it is not legally appointed.
Sometime this year BAZ publicly invited bids from Zimbabwean citizens for the issuance of two national radio broadcasting licences. Fourteen companies applied to the BAZ, including Sharon Mugabe’s KISS-FM.

It is imperative to note that by agreeing to tender their bids, these bidders tacitly recognised that the BAZ was a legally established institution and they all had equal chances to win. At that time also, none of the MDC formations moved a motion in Parliament seeking dissolution of BAZ.
Later, the BAZ further shortlisted to four, the number of contestants, including Madame Sharon Mugabe’s company. Again, the MDC formations did not query on that last-four selection. The losing 10 contestants accepted the BAZ decision and did not appeal against it.

The next crucial and decisive step was to conduct the public hearings so that the BAZ would be formally guided by the conversations of the public domain. At this time, MDC formations did not dispute the shortlist of the four companies. Can one assume that one or more of their own was still in the race at that time?
These public hearings were conducted from October 2011. All four contesting companies were equally exposed to public interrogation which later resulted in ABC Communications emerging in first position,

Zimpapers in second place while KISS FM came third followed by VOP in fourth place.
Prime Minister Tsvangirai described the results as a “farce” because the winners of the radio broadcast licences are “Zanu-PF” elements. KISS FM was encouraged by the Prime Minister’s statement and hence the appeal.

Before these radio broadcasting licences were issued, Zimbabwe had two local television channels and four local radio stations. In addition to that there are three pirate/unlicensed foreign radio stations beaming into Zimbabwe. These three foreign radio stations have wider transmission coverage than ZBC and reach areas where people solely rely on radio as their only source of information. One of them is VOP which was one of the final contestants. It would have been foolhardy for BAZ to allow a pirate radio station to participate in the process before it ceased its illegal operations. Were they trying to legitimise contraband?

Further, the generality of Zimbabweans in the urban and rural areas have Wiz-tech satellite technology, which enables them to access, among other news channels, SABC1 SABC2 SABC3 and Sky News. With the re-emergence of the middle class in Zimbabwe, it is estimated that more than 900 000 families across the country subscribe to the DSTV. They have access to 24 hour news channels like CNN, BBC, E-news, Euronews, Aljazeera, Sky News, Russia Today, CCTV, and NDTV. Locally, we have one national television station which carries less than five hours for every 22 hours for news and current affairs daily.

Article 14 of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) says of these stations, “Aware of the emergence of foreign-based radio stations into Zimbabwe, some of which are funded by foreign governments . . . further concerned that foreign governments funded external stations into Zimbabwe are not in Zimbabwe’s national interest.”
It is apparent therefore that these stations are not on neutral standing when it comes to reporting on Zimbabwean politics. Who do they favour? These channels are generally anti-Zanu-PF and their reports on indigenisation, land reform, President Mugabe’s “illness”, rule of law and violence speak for themselves. They have been interestingly quiet on the

Prime Minister’s “sex-gate” but would stop press if any senior member of the opposition is called to a police station for questioning. What have all the signatories to the GPA done to stop the pirate radio stations? Every principal must give own account first before rubbishing BAZ.
No one should be barred from challenging the BAZ decision. But it is worth remembering that Madame Sharon is a Zanu-PF member and a losing candidate at the 2008 Zanu-PF primary elections. Her advertisement agency did a fantastic job in the 2008 elections in coming up with high class adverts targeting the 18-40 age groups. She is arguably one of the best advertising gurus in this country. Needless to say, her acquisition of her advertising agency was largely precipitated by the Zanu-PF lobbied indigenisation regulations which direct that the advertising industry must be a preserve for locals.

Douglas Munatsi, KISS FM shareholder, is one of the early beneficiaries of Zanu-PF’s empowerment programmes which gave bank licences to indigenes as a matter of affirmative action as directed by section 23 (g) of the Zimbabwe constitution. It is very unfortunate that the culture of disputing elections has quickly spread from politicians to the clergy and now to business.
Some of the conversation in the public domain has claimed that Supa Mandiwanzira is a Zanu-PF “apologist”. Let’s look at his resume. He worked for ZBC-TV as a news anchor and presenter for ZTV news bulletins and the Good Morning Zimbabwe together with Abigail Mvududu of MDC-T and Jestina Mukoko who won a USA award for “exposing Zanu-PF transgressions”. Does one become a Zanu-PF apologist because he/she once worked for ZBC? After ZBC, Mandiwanzira reported for SABC and Aljazeera as their Zimbabwe correspondent. His reports were never described as biased against MDC formations. In fact Zanu-PF complained bitterly that Mandiwanzira gave the opposition more interviews than them.

Until recently, Mandiwanzira was the chairman of the pink paper, the Financial Gazette. During his tenure, the paper was very far from being a Zanu-PF brochure. It carried several screaming headlines which were not palatable to Zanu-PF chefs. His television show, Talking Business with Supa, has hosted political leaders from all political parties. If truth be told, the Prime Minister is yet to accept an invitation to come to the show sent to him a year ago.

Mandiwanzira has interviewed President Mugabe with brutal frankness punctuated with hard hitting questions. It’s only that the interviewee is shrewd; ask Christiane Amanpour, that’s why he survived the grilling. Above all, Mandiwanzira is not only a Zimbabwean citizen but an indigene that was previously unfairly discriminated prior to 1980.
Zimpapers, a listed company which also won a radio broadcast licence is owned by all Zimbabweans through government equity. Prior to 1980, the stable was owned by the previous regime, upon winning elections it went into the control of the majority. My question is; if Zimpapers was under Minister Chamisa would the MDC-T contest its licence award?

The BAZ was established by an Act of Parliament, the Broadcasting Services Act of 2007. The powers to appoint members of the board are vested with the President as directed by Section 5 of the Act after consulting the Minister and the Parliament Committee on Standing Rules and Orders (PCSRO). I understand that the chairperson of the PCSRO, Lovemore Moyo seconded six nominees of which three of them were appointed by the President. These are Mrs Makore, Mr Chada and Dr Chivaura. I take it that these are MDC representatives in the BAZ.

Assuming that the Speaker of Parliament did not second anyone to the President to consider for the BAZ board appointment, then it can be argued that as chairman of the PCSRO, he abdicated responsibility here in terms of section 5. Also, assuming that no one in the executive invited the Speaker of Parliament to nominate suitable persons to be considered by the President, then Parliament should have moved motion to debate the appointment of the board immediately after it was constituted. Why wait until it makes a seemingly unfavourable decision to the Speaker of Parliament?

The doctrine of Trias Political — commonly known as separation of powers — authored by the legendary French jurist Montesquieu — forms the basis of our constitution. The reason for the division of powers is that there can be no political freedom in a country when one body makes the laws, implements them and then acts as arbiter when the said laws are contravened.
Our Parliament cannot enact a law where the President is vested with authority to make appointments of board members of BAZ and then want to overturn the same directors when they award a licence to the least favourable institutions. If KISS FM and VOP had won the licences, was Lovemore Moyo going to attempt to cancel the appointment of the BAZ directors? How can you phantom to reverse the decision made by the

Executive without a proper hearing which affords the Executive an opportunity to explain itself? Do we have to settle everything by vote every time in order to change things even if they are unreasonable? There are too many people in Parliament with wool between their ears.
BAZ recently publicly invited interested Zimbabweans to bid for 14 regional radio broadcasting licences. Given its appeal, KISS-FM will not be able to apply until finalisation of its court case. The Daily News court case took seven years to conclude. I guess KISS-FM is a very patient company. It will be faster and better for KISS-FM to lobby for a third licence since they are in third place rather than asking the courts to nullify the selection process and then start afresh with no guarantee that they will get the licence at the second attempt.