Story by Oleen Ndori
Government says sufficient progress has been made in the growth of the media sector in line with aspirations of Vision 2030.
In a wide ranging interview with ZBC News this Tuesday, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Dr Jenfan Muswere highlighted government strides towards media growth and alignment of various media laws to the constitution of Zimbabwe.
“The principles that have just been approved by the cabinet in terms of the Zimbabwe Media Commission Act in order to strengthen the institution which is properly constituted, which is conducting its business in terms of the functions and the mandate in terms of the (constitution of Zimbabwe as a chapter four institution. And so all the principles that we’ve introduced to cabinet which we approved is in order to strengthen and allow the commission to be able to conduct its business in terms of the constitution of Zimbabwe.
“At the same time, the introduction of the media practitioners bill in order also to ensure that we recognise that media practitioners are professionals and that their conduct in terms of fusing the Zimbabwe Media Commission Act and the development of the Media Practitioners Bill will also ensure that we develop a robust, sustainable media industry in our country,” he said.
According to the Information Minister, the Digital Broadcast Migration Programme will be kick-started next year to improve the broadcasting space.
“Principally, the game changer is the commencement of Zimdigital phase two project. The current challenges in terms of Transmedia as a signal carrier is that we’ve had 38% in terms of geographical coverage in terms of television services and 62% for radio. So, the relaunch which we will conduct in 2025 in terms of Vision 2030 will ensure that we achieve 100% in terms of our media sovereignty to ensure that the infrastructure, the transmission infrastructure and equipment will be deployed across the whole country starting, in particular, with the border areas as we seek to ensure that we achieve information ubiquity.
“So all these are some of the transformational achievements that we’ve registered in 2024 in terms of the digital infrastructure master plan and the majority of the implementation modalities will be done in 2025. So all these transformational achievements which we have registered we believe will ensure that we leave no one and no place behind. So part of the amendments in terms of the Broadcasting Services Act chapter 12.06 also include the recognition and coverage and content generation of all the 16 officially recognised languages in terms of the constitution of Zimbabwe as we seek to ensure that each and every citizen of our country is not left behind in terms of the information, content generation and dissemination as we seek to ensure that we’re real-time a disseminator of information both through state institutions and also through the private sector institutions. So these are some of the infrastructural interventions that we have also put in place in order to ensure that we succeed as a ministry,” said Dr Muswere.
Dr Muswere further highlighted that the Ministry is working towards ending media polarisation while promoting media diversity and freedom of speech and opinion in line with the National Development Strategy One.
