Monitoring observations over the past month of the Voice of Zimbabwe indicate that regular programming has yet to start. The station opened on 25 May 2007.
Harare’s state-owned The Sunday Mail reported on 27 May that the station was testing “for the next three weeks, during which time management will be fine-tuning programming and receiving feedback from listeners from all over the world”. The published transmission schedule is 0530 to 1630 gmt on 5975 kHz and 1630 to 0530 gmt on 4828 kHz.
However, no news broadcasts have been heard; the station plays Chimurenga [liberation war] music which fades away at different times. There is no set schedule and no announcers have been heard.
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings and the Ministry of Information have not advanced any explanation for the failure to begin news broadcasts.
Zimdaily, a London-based online news service critical of government policies, reported on 5 June that the station had “indefinitely” postponed broadcasts because “the radio was inadvertently jammed by the same equipment set up by the paranoid ZANU-PF government to jam private radio stations - Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa”.
The station, headed by liberation war veteran Happison Muchechetere, is thought to have hired three reporters by 15 June. Staff members are still based in Harare, not in Gweru, the city from which the station broadcasts. Vehicles bearing the station’s logo are seen on the streets of Harare.
(Source: BBC Monitoring research 29 Jun 07/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)
