MEDIA-MALAWI: Fire Guts TV Station

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Anderson Zalanje

LILONGWE, Mar 11 2002 (IPS) - Malawi’s only television station – TVM – has been burnt down to ashes. Its director general, Benson Tembo, says TVM’s studios, including its transmitting studio, have been completely destroyed.

Tembo says the extent of the damage is being assessed. “We are still assessing the damage and we will give details soon,” says Anthony Livuza of the ministry of information.

Fire fighters, along with TVM staff, at the scene of the accident, which occurred on Mar 9, only managed to salvage a few items like tapes and computers.

“We crashed the windows to get some stuff out, but we could not save the huge studio equipment,” recalls Wellington Kuntaja, a senior journalist at the station.

Before the fire erupted, a TVM employee told IPS that they had complained about an unpleasant odour emanating from the storeroom, but inspection revealed nothing.

Visibly shocked, Muhammad Kulesi, TVM board chairperson, stood with his arms akimbo. “I was on my way in somebody’s car when Mr. Tembo called me, saying there was a fire at TVM. It’s a big problem,” he said, as he took a small group of journalists into the burnt studio after firemen put the inferno under control.

In the confusion that reigned, some equipment and personal effects for staff were destroyed. No one, however, was injured.

Police say they will issue a statement after a thorough investigation to the cause of the fire.

The incident sent shock waves across Malawi where TVM, which broadcast in English and Chichewa, was rapidly becoming an entertainment catalyst. Apart from its own productions, programmes downloaded from various feeds are broadcast throughout the day.

Speaking Sunday, in Chiradzulu district, about 25 kilometres south-east of the commercial capital, Blantyre, at a launching ceremony of a Village Housing Scheme, a senior member of the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF), Samson Msosa, bemoaned the destruction of the station by fire. He appealed to the government to launch a thorough investigation into the incident.

TVM, which relied heavily on state subsidy, began broadcasting on Apr 1, 1999, after missing four deadlines since 1994. The broadcast was limited to cities, as most Malawians – who live in rural areas – could not afford a television set.

Television was banned by the late dictator Kamuzu Banda, who ruled Malawi with an iron fist for 30 years until conceding defeat in elections to his presidential challenger Bakili Muluzi in 1994.

The introduction of multi-party politics in 1994 ushered in a new era of expression, with the mushrooming of privately owned radio stations and newspapers.

In 1998, the first privately owned station, Capital Radio, began broadcasting to the nation. Since then, nine private radio stations have been established in the tiny southern African nation of 10 million people.

An agricultural country with a pleasant climate, Malawi is the home of six major ethnic groups: the Chewa, predominantly on the lake shore; the Yao of the southern lake shore; the Chipoka of the central region; the Tonga of the northern region, the Tambuka and the Ngonde.

In 1973, Banda, who became President in 1964, singled out journalists for persecution, driving many into exile. Foreign journalists were branded as “liars” by the dictator and banned from Malawi.

Muluzi has moved away from the policies of Banda who used state-owned radio and newspapers to strengthen his grip on power in Malawi, a landlocked country bordering Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia.

Muluzi on Monday directed the ministry of finance to release 10 million kwacha (about 138,000 U.S. dollars) to enable TVM to restart broadcasting to the nation programmes from other television stations by satellite.

The Malawi leader gave the instructions in Blantyre after he was briefed by TVM management that they will be able to transmit through satellite feed from other television stations in seven days and local recorded programmes within 14 days.

Muluzi, who pledged government support towards the quick transmission of the services, says TVM is a pride to the nation and that losing it through the fire is a tragedy.