Allow importation of smart TVs only to compliment digitalisation program
Mbizo legislator Settlement Chikwinya has reiterated recommendations from the Portfolio Committee on Media, Information and Broadcasting Services that the country should ban the importation of televisions that cannot receive the digital transmission.
According to Honourable Chikwinya, televisions will help do away with the issue of set-top boxes.
Set-top boxes enable viewers to access digital signals from the digital transmission and without them, people cannot access the transmission.
Speaking in the National Assembly during a debate on the progress made on the digitalisation program, Chikwinya said the country should take advantage of the smart televisions.
‘’The other recommendation by the Committee is can Parliament pass a law that every television that is now going to be imported must be capable of receiving digital airwaves?
‘’This then deals with the issue of the Government having to buy set-top boxes because they are there to mitigate for those television sets that are not able to convert analogue transmission to digital transmission. It has to go through a set-top box.
‘’However, there are now smart televisions which do not need these set-top boxes, they automatically receive the signal and transmit automatically. Yes, the Committee made an observation but they were not full in terms of asserting their authority as to who is supposed to then foot this bill of set-top boxes.
‘’Whilst they mention the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, the Ministry is actually working through ZBC.
‘’There is also another issue of ZBC having contracted Huawei– the contractor doing a parallel programme and having received parallel funds from what I believe ZBC should actually be doing because it has a set of engineers, and Information Technology experts.
‘’I do not think it was actually necessary, Huawei could have been supplying equipment but not necessarily being project managers of the same.
Honourable Chikwinya added that without digitalisation, Zimbabwe will be stuck with one television station.
‘’I just rose to try and demonstrate to this House that in the absence of digitalisation, we will continue to be able to broadcast one television station through our own airwaves.’
‘’So, we are going to year number 43 as we celebrate independence; 43, 44 and 45, perhaps with the same dispensation or any other new dispensation – if we do not solve the issue of digitalisation, you will continue to see one television station, which is ZBC.
‘’If you want to begin to transmit more television and radio stations using our own airwaves, we need to go full digitalisation as we were supposed to have done in 2015,’’ he said.
Allow importation of smart TVs only to compliment digitalisation program
