REDCLIFF – Zimbabwe has the capacity to licence an additional four television stations while 94 radio licences can be issued in both urban and rural areas, a top government official said at the weekend.

Addressing media personnel in the Midlands town of Redcliff near Kwekwe on the need to open up the country’s airwaves, Deputy Information Minister Jameson Timba said an assessment done by the ministry revealed that the country’s radio and television spectrum could still take in 31 radio licences in urban areas and 60 country-based licences.

He said the television spectrum allowed for additional licencing of three ultra-high frequency (UHF) television licenses and one very high frequency (VHF) television licence.

“If Zimbabwe were to go on a full spectrum today, there is capacity for three ultra-high frequency (UHF) television licences and one very high frequency (VHF) television licence and what that means is that as we stand we can have an extra four television stations, that is what the frequency allows,” Timba said.

Turning to radio, the Deputy Minister from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party said the spectrum showed that there is space to issue close to 100 licences.

“We have planned capacity to issue 31 radio licenses in urban areas and a further 60 country-based radio licences while we also have the capacity to also issue two national frequency modulation (FM) radio licences,” Timba said.

He added that the spectrum also allowed a capacity to issue two national frequency modulation (FM) radio licences.

President Robert Mugabe, the country’s sole ruler since independence from Britain in 1980, and his ZANU PF government have not registered any new players in the broadcasting sector due to stringent media laws that promoted state monopoly in the broadcasting sector.

His February unity government with Tsvangirai is supposed to implement a raft of media and political reforms to open up democratic space and re-shape the country’s politics before holding new elections by end of 2010 or early 2011.

But the unity government that has achieved commendable progress on economic reforms has struggled on the political and media front where reforms have moved at a snail’s pace, amid quarreling by coalition partners over the extent and form of reform.

A misunderstanding over the appointment of a new Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) last month when Information Minister Webster Shamu announced a new board chaired by former Media Information Commission (MIC) chairperson Tafataona Mahoso that was shot down by the MDC-T as unprocedural because other coalition parties were not consulted, will see the coming in of new players delayed.

In his address to the journalists at the meeting organised by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Zimbabwe) Timba revealed that there will be a fresh appointment of the BAZ board.

“In the coming weeks a new board for BAZ will be set up as the one announced by the minister last month was not constituted properly,” he said.

There are no independent broadcasters in Zimbabwe and the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) runs the country’s only television and radio stations, all tightly controlled by Mugabe’s ZANU PF party even after formation of the unity government. – ZimOnline