President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s spokesperson and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services George Charamba has said that the opposition MDC Alliance has no funds to pay for its adverts on national broadcaster ZBC. Charamba was responding to allegations made by former MDC-T Member of Parliament Settlement Chikwinya who said that ZBC had charged the opposition $57 000 per day. Speaking to the Sunday Mail, Charamba said,
People must not confuse access and procurement issues. At law, all political parties have a right of access to the national broadcaster, but it’s up to the political players to translate that right into reality and that is a function of the means, which are the resources and not of the law.
…Beyond that, what their talkative outgone MP forgot to remind himself is that there are no MDC Alliance adverts in newspapers, which are a lot cheaper. Much worse, there are no MDC posters on trees. Is he suggesting that even trees have hiked their prices?”
…They should never be a sense in anyone’s head that merely because they are contesting elections, that in itself is a license to rundown the frames of ZBC as a broadcaster. We will not allow that.
…The business of politics is expensive and if you are not ready to meet the expenses, get out.
More: Sunday Mail