Munhumutapa fails to meet broadcast deadline again

LEKOPANYE MOOKETSI
Correspondent | Friday January 16, 2009 00:00

But no action has been taken against the company which has been failing to comply with its licence requirements.

MABC was granted a satellite subscription television service licence in December 2007 in terms of which the company should have started broadcasting within six months. 

When it failed, the deadline was extended to December 31, 2008. As is turns out, MABC - which is owned by controversial Zimbabwean businessman Oscar Kubara - has failed yet again.

When he accepted the licence in December 2007, Kubara announced that MABC subscribers would have a menu of at least 15 channels for P100 a month in six months.
 When that did not happen, Kubara said in an interview that MABC would definitely meet the extended deadline in December.

Contacted this week, he said the company was 'working on a plan' and would issue a press statement. 'We are communicating with the NBB,' he said, but would not elaborate: 'That is not the way we do business. We will talk to the press when we are ready.'The Chairman of NBB, Dr Masego Mpotokwane, says he is waiting for a briefing on MABC from his technical department members of which have just resumed work after the Christmas break. 'When MABC asked for an extension of time last year, one of the reasons it advanced was that its studio equipment had not (yet) arrived,' Mpotokwane remembers.Speaking guardedly, he says a licence can only be withdrawn if there is failure to comply with its requirements and that there are many factors taken into consideration before such drastic action may be taken.

In the case of MABC, the licence, which is a subscription licence, was not tendered for. Mpotokwane says MABC submitted an application which the NBB approved.

Meanwhile, according to the Zimbabwean press, MABC operated for only a few months in 1997 before it was closed down after it allegedly failed to pay air fees to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC).

A Zimbabwean newspaper, the Independent, reported that an attempt by MABC to apply for a broadcasting licence was rejected after the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe questioned the company's sources of financing.

Kubara made headlines last year after he announced that his company would sponsor the Botswana Football Association's Premier League to the tune of P60 million for three seasons.

He steadfastly maintained the fraudulent hoax up to the last moment when the league was due to start, creating a crisis before new mobile phone service outfit, be Mobile, rescued the BFA by stepping in as sponsors.

At one point Kubara claimed the funds he wanted to sponsor the BFA with were locked in a 'Down Under' trust account by an Australian law firm and that he did not know when the money would ultimately reach Botswana.