EDITOR — The Chitungwiza Residents Trust (Chitrest) joins other progressive residents’ movements in the country in calling for the boycott of licence fees to Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) amid the unearthing of a salary scandal at the national broadcaster.
This comes after the revelation, emanating from the current investigation on the salary structure at the broadcasting corporation.
We call upon residents of Chitungwiza and other areas to stop paying licencing fees as the disclosure that ZBC supremo Happison Muchechetere’s monthly salary and perks were pegged at over $40 000 is an insult to majority that is living from hand-to-mouth on a daily basis.
That amount of money could cater for about 200 families considering that an average employee at the national broadcaster earns less than $300 per month.
As if this were not enough, Muchechetere blamed the existence of the so-called economic sanctions as the cause for the suffering of Zimbabweans and the poor quality programming at ZBC, yet he was the biggest sanction. Residents who are suspicious of the goings on at ZBC have a right not to pay their monies.
We commend the efforts by the ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services to ensure that the ratepayers’ money is not put to waste through funding personal aggrandisement ventures at the expense of an improved quality of programming at ZBC Holdings.
Many Zimbabweans who cannot afford to access other alternative radio and television stations which include DStv have been reduced to buying cheap quality, ancient and pirated compact discs, DVDs and VCDs for a $1 in search of alternative viewership and listenership.
We urge residents to stop paying ZBC licensing fees and seek alternative forms of listenership and viewership while the nation waits for the completion of the ongoing probe into the salary structure of managers at ZBC.
This is justified by the fact that while management was globe-trotting in the company of their wives and suspected “mistresses”, the general worker at the State-owned broadcaster was languishing in abject poverty and forced to go for close to a year without receiving their salaries.
We pray that Muchechetere be arrested and made to account for millions of dollars he prejudiced generations and generations of this country by making sure that they are taken about 20 years back in terms of technological advancement in being forced to listen to and view ancient programmes.
Chitrest Information,
Department