Ngoni Dapira

INFORMATION, Publicity and Broadcasting Services permanent secretary Nick Mangwana has fired warning shots and sent a stern warning to non performing State-owned media entities. He said it is high time they shape up or ship out, with vision 2030 in mind, which spells out governments agenda of attaining an upper middle income economy status by 2030.

This was said yesterday (Wednesday) during the official opening of the Ministry’s strategic planning workshop held in Vumba, Mutare. He said this year’s strategic planning meeting is very critical in setting the tone and chatting the way forward on how to sustainably grow the country’s media landscape in the digital era where technological advancement is fast-changing.

Delegates that attended the workshop following proceedings.

“I am glad to say that a lot of what we had set out to achieve under the National Development Strategy (NDS) 1 has been achieved. We do have some programmes that have over run, some projects that are still work in progress and some projects that actually never took off. At this strategic planning workshop we should look at those, then make decisions whether they are still relevant on our next NDS journey or by all means we should just discard them,” said Mangwana candidly in his official opening remarks.

Zimbabwe has three main state media entities, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) for radio and television, Zimbabwe Newspapers Limited (Zimpapers), mostly known for print media but has since expanded to radio and television and the third one, a news agency New Ziana. Other state linked bodies under the Ministry are Transmedia Corporation which is responsible for the transmission and distribution of media signals, the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), a regulatory body for broadcasting services and the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) that assesses the media industry and handles public complaints against media.

The permanent secretary said all the media projects and programmes that were put in place under NDS1, which lapses next month, have been to ensure that no Zimbabwean remains uninformed of what is happening in the country and that no Zimbabwean remains without access to information. Mangwana added that a two way communication in information dissemination has been achieved in the country, whereby information is conveyed to the people freely and the people also communicate back to government freely through various media platforms, which he said is in tandem with international best practices that promote freedom of expression.

He applauded Transmedia for good work in general, but said on the television transmission side it has been lagging, “We all know that on the television side there hasn’t been any movement. It has just been meetings, tenders but nothing. We now have access to the digital dividends. May we be seen to have done something on the transmission space,” said the permanent secretary when he focused his presentation on how the entity performed throughout the year.

He said there is a research that was done that shows that about 61 percent of the Zimbabwean population still accessed their information through radio. He said this proves that radio is still the most effective way of communicating to the Zimbabwean populace. Mangwana said by 2030, Transmedia must have completed rolling out transmission networks across the country particularly, Frequency Modulation (FM) radio transmissions, so that every citizen accesses radio frequencies.

Moving on to New Ziana he said currently there is a question in the air, on whether government still needs a news agency as a strategic tool. “Is this the direction we are moving in the modern era? or we should review if New Ziana is still relevant on the news agency side of things. The relevance of New Ziana as an entity cannot be questioned, but what is being questioned is the news agency side,” said the permanent secretary frankly without blinking an eye.

Mangwana added that under the devolution model the agency is key to speak to local developmental issues, community issues and promoting local languages, but at the moment they are just operating as a news agency, “ So if they were here, I would have loved to say to them, lets relook and readjust where we are going. It’s 100 percent funded by the fiscus. I believe in our budget proposal for next year we are allocating them $1 million of our paltry budget, but if we were to revisit this year and say what did we gain from it? All the money that we pumped into New Ziana, probably let’s wait for them to give us an answer because we don’t know,” he said without mincing words.

The permanent secretary said through the mandatory radio licensing that was enforced, as a Ministry they are expecting to see major changes at ZBC.

“ZBC will now have money to change the reputation of ZBC and ensure that the national vision is curated nicely and delivered to the people. It must take back its space as the go to channel for factual information and verification.”

He added that the Minster of Information Dr Jenfan Muswere speaks to the need of a dedicated Sports channel on ZBC. Mangwana said that should be realised, citing that ZBC has a reserve frequency which can be used for that after applying for the license from BAZ. He said the Sports channel must be part of the key deliverables for 2026.

Turning to Zimpapers, the permanent secretary said its television brand, Zimpapers Television Network (ZTN) must pull up its socks in 2026.

“We see what you are doing but it’s sad that the television sector is struggling and therefore ZTN hasn’t done what it’s supposed to do. But how can it do what it’s supposed to do when the set-top boxes are in the warehouse somewhere,” he said.

Set-top boxes enable the television receiver to receive and decode digital television broadcasts, which enables locals to continue watching television after switching from analogue to digital television service.

Mnagwana said offloading the set-top boxes must not be an option but a mandate in 2026. “They will go obsolete because technology is moving so fast.”

William Chikoto

Speaking on the sidelines, Acting Zimpapers Group Ceo, William Chikoto said the strategic planning workshop by the Ministry was eye opening.

“We are a media company that cuts across different platforms, newspapers, radio and television, but of particular interest for us has been the broadcasting side of things where we are seeing concrete plans to expand transmission to reach more areas that we were not able to reach. In terms of television the big take away for us was the issue of set-top boxes. We still have about 50 000 or 40 000 set-top boxes and have taken heed of what the permanent secretary said,” said Chikoto.

Transmedia Corporation Ceo, Engineer Adonia Mushosho said by end of next year they are targeting 90 percent FM radio transmission countrywide.

Eng Adonia Mushosho

“The purpose of this workshop by the Ministry was to align vision 2030 in terms of information dissemination to the populace, so as Transmedia we are there to support this. In terms of coverage currently we are at 81 percent coverage the whole country for FM radio transmission and for 2026 we are targeting to be at 90 percent,” said Eng Mushosho.

He added that by the turn of 2030 every corner of Zimbabwe must have FM radio transmission to ensure information relay is achieved when Zimbabwe attains its upper middle income society status.