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| National |
| Commission to equip MBC, TVM |
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by
Mc Donald Chapalapata, 12 March 2004
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13:44:21
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Electoral Commission (EC) has said it will equip public broadcasters Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Television Malawi (TVM) with cars and cameras to enable them to cover all political parties equally during the official campaign period.
EC spokesman Fegus Lipenga said on Thursday when the Commission opens the official campaign period on March 20, it will give cars to MBC and TVM to enable them to collect election materials from all political parties.
Lipenga said TVM complained that apart from transport problems, they do not have adequate cameras to cover all political parties.
“We told them to write a proposal so that we should submit it to the donors so that we get cameras specifically for elections coverage,” said Lipenga.
He also said the public broadcasters complained of some politicians in the opposition who refuse to be interviewed.
“We are urging opposition parties to be friendly to the public media so that they should be covered. We also want to urge all political parties contesting in the elections to be more focused and talk issues so that the reporters should find stories to be broadcasted,” said Lipenga.
He said the Commission is currently working on how they are going to allocate airtime to contesting political parties and said the Commission would present its suggestions to the National Elections Consultative Forum (Necof) meeting on March 29 in Lilongwe.
He also said during the Commission’s media committee meeting with MBC and TVM recently, it was agreed that MBC should extend its news bulletins by 10 minutes to accommodate political news from all the contesting parties targeting presidential candidates.
“We have also asked MBC and TVM to come up with deliberate programmes to accommodate all candidates including independents and that is why we will provide with them transport to collect election materials to be used in those programmes,” said Lipenga.
Newly-appointed MBC Deputy Director General Eunice Chipangula said on Thursday that she is yet to present the proposal on extending news bulletins by 10 minutes to management.
“We are yet to discuss that because soon after the meeting at the Commission I was sent to Lilongwe and I am yet to present it to management for discussions,” said Chipangula from Lilongwe where she was attending a meeting.
Asked whether MBC would edit presidential rallies in the run-up to the elections, Chipangula said MBC follows provisions of the Communications Act which, she said, provides for live coverage for an incumbent head of state.
He also said EC stringers who are in all the districts in the country will help in providing stories to the two public broadcasters.
Lipenga also said the Commission will provide more telephone lines in some district assemblies to be used by the District Commissioner and EC Stringers who will supply stories to the public media houses.
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