Zimbabwe has no money for digitalization as deadline approaches

Zimbabwe does not have enough money to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting and has only allocated $1.46 million when the total bill is $29.5 million, the chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Media, Information and Broadcasting Services, William Dhewa said last week.

It also does not have money to buy equipment that is needed by the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe to monitor the 25 commercial radio stations which it is going to license.

Dhewa said the deadline set by the International Telecommunications Union to digitalise is 17 June 2015.

Digitalisation will make more television channels available to the public.

Dhewa said the BAZ would license 25 radio stations within the 2015 fiscal year but it had only been allocated $55 000 when it needed $1.9 million to buy equipment to monitor the radio stations.

“This chore must be carried out without fail,” he said.

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