Tendai Matunhu
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Information, Media and Broadcasting Services today toured the national broadcaster, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) to assess the state of preparedness to move from analogue to digital broadcasting.
The Portfolio Committee has started its tour by visiting ZBC Pockets Hill Studios in Harare. The committee is being led by House of Assembly Member for Binga North, Prince Sibanda.
Speaking during the tour, Sibanda highlighted that the committee had a huge task ahead of them and how important the tours were.
“The committee is here to see how the national broadcaster operates and as well the state of preparedness to move from analogue to digital broadcasting. In terms of Section 119 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, all institutions are accountable to Parliament and Portfolio Committees must investigate to look into any issues affecting the entities,” he said.
Sibanda said these visits shall determine how much the ZBC can get from the fiscus. ZBC Chief Executive Officer, Mr Patrick Mavhura said ZBC was modernising and was now in a working relationship with several international news productions.
“ZBC has so far digitalised 7 studios, 5 radio and 2 TV studios. ZBC now has a working relationship with Al Jazeera, BBC, RT news among others on news production and has increased the number of reporters across Zimbabwe. The national broadcaster is currently using internal resources to do some of these innovations upon realisation that we would continue lagging behind,” he said.
Responding to the state of preparedness of ZBC to run six stations, Mr Mavhura admitted that there are financial constraints but the company is thinking outside the box so as to populate its channels. Tomorrow they will be in Mutare. The same committee will on 5 July 2019 leave for Gweru, Bulawayo and Kariba.
The tour comes just a few months after Government considered repealing the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) with three separate bills on the cards as replacements in February. Government is serious in its quest to modernise broadcasting in Zimbabwe.
