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Representatives of broadcasting houses on Tuesday recommended the need to have a clear national broadcasting law to check present conflicts between some community and private radios and the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra).
In their recommendations after a two-day workshop in Blantyre, the participants, who included civil society and Macra representatives, also said regulatory authority should consider designing special licences for educational institutions like the Malawi Institute of Journalism (Mij) whose FM radio is currently classified as community radio.
“Macra should take into account the fact that some applications come from training institutions and therefore should take the education aspect into consideration,” reads the communique, further recommending a four-tier broadcasting system.
Zambia-based Panos Southern Africa Director Fackson Banda, whose organisation funded the workshop, said there is so much energy about media reforms in Malawi which moved Panos through the National Media Institute of Southern Africa (Namisa) to contribute to the process to ensure the momentum is not lost.
“We want to have a positive media policy framework and I would say the meeting has been a big success because the participants have come up with an ambitious action plan,” he said
Banda also said he was impressed with the attendance of Macra which was represented by director of broadcasting James Chimera.
In his closing remarks, Namisa chairman Denis Mzembe thanked Panos Southern Africa for supporting the initiative to free the airwaves in the country. He said it is unfortunate that 10 years after attaining multiparty democracy, people are still talking about liberalising broadcasting.
Macra has come under fire from election stakeholders and NGOs for failing to control public broadcasters Television Malawi and MBC to give airtime to alternative voices other than the ruling party alone.
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