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Mr George Charamba

Bulawayo Bureau
The country’s ongoing digitisation process will result in the creation of thousands of job opportunities in the media industry in line with Zim-Asset objectives, a Government official has said.

Secretary for Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Mr George Charamba, who is on a tour of the country’s provinces to gauge progress in civil works taking place at base stations, said the programme was hinged on Zim-Asset’s infrastructure development cluster.

Zimbabwe is in the process of installing digital transmitters as the country strives to complete the digitalisation process before the end of the year.

Cde Charamba said three top class international standard studios would be established in Bulawayo, Harare and Victoria Falls with satellite studios in every province, to ensure continuous high quality local productions.

“The screen must be a sum total of communities with the Tonga or any other community having a studio that produces a local product to allow them to go on national dish,” he said.

“I, therefore, badly need engineers, producers, directors, cameras, editors and artistes for drama, music, film and so on. We must trigger the art industry in a mosaic way where we draw from every culture and work together because this is a sensitive area.”

Mr Charamba said once completed, the process would ensure local programming, while there will also be some platforms for foreign productions.

He said: “Taxpayers’ money can’t be used to import foreign culture that will degrade local culture.”

He said the whole process would result in downstream employment creation for media players and engineers, adding that the country has talent which has not been complemented with equipment in order for it to be vibrant. Mr Charamba is accompanied by TransMedia chief executive Mrs Florence Sigudu-Matambo and her Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe counterpart Mr Obert Muganyura.

Engineers from TransMedia, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe have also been present on the tour which has gone through five provinces — Matabeleland South, Midlands, Masvingo, Mashonaland East and Matabeleland North. “We are here to gauge progress as we want to go digital on satellite with four legs of Zim-Asset.

“We are laying infrastructure for broadcasting and once we are done, we expect a whole new industry in film, radio, TV broadcasting,” said Mr Charamba.

He said Government, although lagging behind other countries in digitisation, had a content model which would empower all sectors of the media.

Mr Charamba said the digitisation process, through Huawei the contractor, would not fail compared to previous attempts with Iran where the country moved to acquire equipment before capacitating engineers.

He said 34 engineers were being trained so that there is continuity after the process is completed. Turning to progress on the transmitter sites, Mr Charamba said there was need to up the game on civil work, which may be disturbed by the next rain season if the process is not complete.

At Manjolo Base Station, workmen were busy digging where footing for the transmitter would be erected while at Kamativi, the transmitter will be at the existing structure.