Do state broadcasters deserve govt funding?
By FRANK JOMO vs HASTINGS MALOYA - Sunday, September 02, 2007 - 11:40:01

Yes, but change the reporting line

BY FRANK JOMO

After the political razzmatazz that characterized the 2007/08 budget discussion in Parliament, Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe wound up debate on the same on Friday morning. This means that from tomorrow, MPs will start scrutinizing vote by vote of all allocations to government ministries and departments.

Government, which has been on its toes to force the opposition dominated Malawi Parliament to prioritize debate on the national budget and not the dreaded Section 65 of the Constitution, knows that the battle is not over. The stage the national budget enters now is equally important if not utmost important.

This is the stage where MPs will authorize money going into individual ministries and departments or not. Obviously the opposition will not authorize money to certain ministries and department in order to get square with them.

Two such organizations which the opposition might not wish to authorize their budgets are Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Television Malawi (TVM). Addressing a rally in Lilongwe, opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) National Chairman Bakili Muluzi ordered MPs from his party to reject budgetary allocations for the state broadcasters.

Muluzi, himself a former president, is riled that MBC and Malawi Television are biased towards government while demonizing the opposition in general and himself more particular. In order to get even with these state broadcasters, he has ordered his legislators to ensure that they don’t give them a dime.

His sentiments have equally been echoed by leader of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president John Tembo. The MCP president just has been ridiculed on both stations and will not be party to giving the two the kitty to run their affairs. The writing is therefore clear on the wall that MBC and TVM should forget getting a cob from Parliament.

It is a given fact that MBC and Television Malawi are very biased in the way they cover political events. However, I do not believe that denying them money will force them to become neutral.

Malawi Broadcasting Corporation and Television Malawi are supposed to be public broadcasters and as such they are obliged to articulate issues that are of benefit tot the general public irrespective of one’s colour, ethnic leanings and political affiliations. These two institutions are in their nature supposed to be neutral.

Unfortunately they have abrogated their role as public broadcasters. Instead, they have assumed the role of state broadcasters articulating policies of the party in power while throwing to the gutter voices of the opposition.

The problems at MBC are entrenched and it would be a mockery to reality to say these problems have come with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). MBC and Television Malawi have been accused of being bias during the Muluzi regime and before.

In fact, there was a time when the same were mocked as being Television Muluzi (TVM) and Muluzi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). This was the time when staff at the stations went to work donning yellow badges and yellow teeth as Idriss Nassah puts it in one of his articles but there were no calls for a budget freeze in order to force them to play by the book.

Therefore, my opinion is that Muluzi’s call to have TVM and MBC budgets rebuffed does not emanate from political uprightness, rather greed. He wants to have everything his way and no any other way.

The painful truth is that denying MBC and TVM funding cannot stop them from broadcasting. The money they get from Parliament is, to a larger extent meant for salaries while a larger chunk of their operations is funded by money realized from adverts and other commercials. What is also true is that even if Parliament decides not to give them money, employees at the station will still receive their salaries.

In fact denying them money might even be good riddance on their part because it will justify their biasness. No opposition figure will cry foul as they would argue that they never receive funding from Parliament.

Wasn’t it last year when the same Parliament gave the stations only half what was allocated to them? Did it change anything or the bias reached dizzying levels?

Muluzi and others should realize by now that problems at MBC and TVM cannot be rectified by threats of denying them a budget rather changing on a few things contributing to this biasness.

For instance, the opposition, which is in majority can introduce a Private Members Bill in Parliament meant to change the status quo at the stations whereby the top bosses become answerable to Parliament and not the government in power as is the case now. This is the only way of ridding problems very much entrenched at the two stations.

But you see this can never be. Our opposition leaders, just as all other political leaders are greedy and would want to misuse and abuse MBC and TVM when their time of ruling this country comes.

They know that if they change things at MBC and TVM (and changing them for good), they may not have that chance to use the same for their propaganda.

As such, they are punishing MBC not out of decency. They (opposition) are no holier. They are punishing the same to satiate their political desires.

I find their excuse of denying MBC and TVM a budget because they are using tax payers’ money to champion propaganda of the ruling government as lame. In fact even those in government pay tax and might be happy with how MBC and TVM are running the show.

Besides the alleged political propaganda, there are more programmes that are of benefit the public. We cannot deny them a budget because of a few minutes of Makiyolobasi and Mizwanya programmes which have been rubbished as full of propaganda. What about programmes like Za mchipatala, Za Chisoni, Ufulu ndi Chitukuko. Should they suffer also because of a few minutes of Makiyolobasi or Mizwanya?

Give them a budget but use your numbers to change the status quo at the two stations. Let the bosses be answerable to Parliament and not to the Minister of Information as is the case now.
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No, they can generate their own funds

BY HASTINGS MALOYA

Former President Dr. Bakili Muluzi never stops to amaze me. In most cases, his political statements, leaves a lot to be desired, especially when he instructs his MPs as if they were kindergarten children. But maybe thus how politics is supposed to be. The whole team of MPs, who are supposed to be representatives of the people, being told what to do by their leader and they choose to listen without asking questions.

Dr. Muluzi might have advised his MPs on different issues but his recent public advice that the legislators should vote against financial allocation to the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Television Malawi, was the worst ever to come from the former leader.

It was disappointing because the legislators are asked to deny MBC and TVM their allocation, not for the benefit of the people of Malawi but for his political will. This is regardless of legislation guiding the operations of the two media houses in Malawi.

Much as I hated Muluzi’s assertion, I believe it is high time Malawians pondered and debated on whether MBC and TVM should continue receiving government funding. This question, whatever the case should not be answered by politicians but by Malawians themselves. Malawians, regardless of their political affiliations must say, after all it’s their money at play here.

Certainly different thoughts and ideas would come in as to whether these two national broadcasters deserve public funding. I would like to say that MBC, maybe just like TVM, do not deserve any funding from government but this should not be said with any political connotations.

From time in memorial Malawi has had only one radio and it has been the only source of electronic information. It was not debatable in such a situation as to whether the government needed to fund it or not. It was obvious that the nation, needed to be communicated to through such a media. Its motto, therefore made a lot of sense, as informing, educating and entertaining. Malawians have gone through a period where radio was the only source of reliable information and most campaign were best delivered through the radio.

But it is said that things do change over time. True to it, things are changing and now Malawi has over eighteen radio stations broadcasting through out the country. Malawi has a television station, she has mobile telephones, has internet, and Malawi now has a regulatory body called the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA). Yes twelve years ago, this was not the case. Indeed things do change over time.

Now the people of Malawi are free to choose which radio station to tune to, Malawians can make a judgement as to which radio station breaks the news and which one has most entertaining and quality programming. We are free to listen to what we like and switch off what makes no sense. Even advertisers have the freedom to fly their adverts on radios of their choice depending on what audience they are interested in.

But why should things remain the same in as far as funding is concerned for MBC? Have we made an assessment that MBC remains the best source of public information in Malawi? Why should it be favoured?

In levelling the playing field, if the government has financial resources thus meant to promote broadcasting media in Malawi, then it needs to fund each radio station – equally and give its people a wider choice of which station to listen to. Funding MBC is tantamount to killing the other radio stations and all of them scramble for the same market in as far as advertising is concerned.

MBC has lost its representation as a national broadcaster if one was to critically go with the type of its programming. Arguably the opposition should be allowed to advance its views, and defend itself against attacks. That is not happening now! New programmes that are cropping up at MBC are far from national building and development. The local content that we used to enjoy in the past years is no longer there.

The question still remain, why should Malawians contribute (funds) to MBC when the radio is not open to the listeners’ choices. In a free society that we are Malawian citizens should be free today to criticise their government, and offer thoughts. This is not happening on MBC. Malawi enjoys freedom of expression and opinion, and this can be strengthened by a fairly levelled playing field for radio broadcasting. MBC, as it is now with the changed landscape that we are in, does not deserve any public funding. Let it receive if the laws say so and we should work tirelessly to re-look at those laws and see whether they are making sense for the time that we live in.

MBC has a vibrant business department with quite a lot of resources both technical and human. They are almost everywhere in Malawi with strong transmitters. It’s just a matter of putting in lovely productions and a team of vibrant marketing professionals and do away will all issues of corruption. Surely MBC does not need any funding from anyone. The only funding they may need should come from donor and non-governmental organisations through project proposals.

The private radio broadcasting in Malawi faces a lot of challenges from licensing to taxes and purchase of equipment. Nevertheless, the radios are a great source of information and we have seen them surviving the heat of the day. It is not time they were considered for funding too? Will Malawians cry if that happened?

Our politicians should not be talking noise for personal gains, it would help to go into parliament, look at the legislation, revisit it and alter where necessary, of course with the blessing of all Malawians. This should be done regardless on one’s political affiliations and beliefs.

It is overdue. MBC does not deserve government funding. My proposal is that MBC should receive its allocation for the time being but the legislations should be looked into now. This must stop. Let’s not make our public broadcaster lazy. Things have changed; let’s accept the change by changing the way we think. How are private radio stations surviving without public funding yet they produce excellent programmes that appeal to people from all political divide?

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