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Unesco has given the Malawi Media Women’s Association (Mamwa) until 4 PM Thursday to surrender the Dzimwe Community Radio in Monkey Bay to the local community but Mamwa says it will challenge the move in court because it smells a rat.
Mamwa president Stella Mhura said in an interview from Mchinji on Wednesday that Mamwa does not recognise the interim committee pushing for the hand-over of the Unesco-funded radio to the community because their project proposal stipulated that it be handed over to rural women.
“It’s not like we are clinging to the radio. We are ready to hand it over but to the right people who are rural women of Nankumba, not a few individuals posing as Dzimwe community radio interim committee,” she said, adding that Mamwa smells political manipulation in the move.
Under the terms of contract and any circumstances, Mamwa were supposed to hand over the radio to the community after two years from 1998, which was in 2000, according to Unesco Malawi assistant executive secretary (communications) Emmanuel Kondowe.
Mhura said Mamwa has since sought the intervention of the Unesco regional office in Harare, Zimbabwe because it has lost confidence in the local Unesco office whose officer, Kondowe, swore an affidavit for the community’s application to vacate a Mamwa injunction.
But lawyer Kalekeni Kaphale, who is representing the interim committee, said any Mamwa legal challenge will be “half-hearted” because Unesco, as owners of the radio equipment, have given them an ultimatum.
“Unesco wrote the letter sometime in September and the grace period [for Mamwa to hand-over] ends tomorrow and if they don’t hand-over I am going to be on the offensive legally,” he said in an interview in Blantyre Wednesday.
Kondowe said the coming of a Unesco regional representative would not help Mamwa because, he said, Unesco Malawi made the decision to get the radio from them after consultations.
Kondowe, who said the role of Mamwa was to come up with programmes targeting women and not to own the radio, accused the media women of “milking a cow” without feeding it.
“They [Mamwa] used the radio like a cow. They milked it but nothing was ploughed back to the radio and to be fair to the community, it’s good to give them the radio they deserve to own,” he said, adding that the radio is now dilapidated compared to 1998 when it opened.
A Mamwa official, who refused to be named, said it is unfair to accuse the organisation of “milking” Dzimwe Radio when the media women have struggled to put the radio where it is.
“If Unesco is saying we have not delivered, ask them the position of Nkhotakota Community Radio which was supposed to go on air together with us six years ago?” she said.
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