By IPS Correspondents
HARARE, Dec 22 1996 (IPS)

A recent Supreme Court ruling ordering government to speed up the administrative procedures on the licensing of cellular telecommunications services is likely to put more pressure on the State to loosen its tight grip.

Some Zimbabweans who have anxiously been waiting to cast their net in private broadcasting were particularly encouraged by the Court’s ruling, which they say could pave the way for faster movement on the opening of the airwaves.

“Although the ruling mentioned cellular, it also applies to broadcasting (in a reference to government’s control of the airwaves),” says Chemist Siziba, who is battling to start the first pay-TV in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s government, through the state-owned Post and Telecommunications Corporation (PTC), has maintained its position of being the sole provider of telecom services, even though it has been far from efficient in providing these services to the nation of 11.4 million.

Strive Masiyiwa of Enhanced Communications Network (Pvt) Ltd (Econet) has been battling through the courts for over a year for the PTC to grant his company a licence to provide a cellular phone service.

Econet installed a 10 million u.s. dollars network earlier this year, but had to shelve the project because government would not grant a licence.

The Supreme Court last Wednesday (Dec.18) ordered the Minister of Information, Posts and Telecommunications, the ministry under which the PTC falls, to quickly prepare specifications for a cellular communications service, gazette the form to be used in the tender for a licence, and by February 28, 1997, grant or refuse the tenderers a licence.

The PTC had refused to grant the licence to Masiyiwa’s company on the grounds that it enjoys an exclusive monopoly in terms of the Postal and Telecommunications Service Act.

But last December, the Supreme Court ruled that the PTC monopoly was unconstitutional, because it could not be justified in a democratic society. In July, this year the Act was amended and the minister authorised to make regulations to open the cellular services to other providers.

Masiywa however went back to court and accused the ministry of dragging its feet. In his decision last week, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Gubbay, agreed: “Certainly no substantial effort is being made to accelerate the procedures under the regulations.

“Any sense of urgency is totally lacking,” Justice Gubbay continued. “The continuing delay which remains unaccounted for, must be taken to be deliberate”.

Private investors eyeing the broadcast industry believe that the ministry will also have to shake a leg on the age-old discussion of opening up the airwaves, over which it has sole control through the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Act of 1957.

No serious attempt has been made to review the law. Instead, a clause has been inserted which allows the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (the sole broadcaster) to vet all potential private partners.

Currently, a consultant is in the country preparing a study for the ministry on ways to amend the Act substantively to allow in other players.

One reason given for the ministry’s slow pace is inefficiencies within its structures. “The ministry does not have any technical capacity to deal with (the administrative aspects of ) the judgement. They need outside assistance,” adds Siziba.

Government also appears to be half-stepping because it is not ready to relinquish total control.

Siziba’s pay-TV was billed to beam into Zimbabwean homes in July 1994, but the state, worried by political implications of an independent station reaching the population, has hijacked the dream, delayed it and allegedly appointed a company owned by political heavyweights to run the project.

‘Cosmos Television’, Siziba says, would carry top flight programmes from cable stations abroad as an alternative to the “bland” programming offered by ZBC.

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