Journalists request Nape to fulfil Media Act promise
Minister for Information, Communications and Information Technology, Mr Nape Nnauye. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- The journalists said the government’s promises usually take a long time to be implemented, explaining that they would like to see the amendment bill tabled in Parliament in February next year.
Dar es Salaam. Hardly a day after Information, Communications, and Information Technology Minister Nape Nnauye said ‘they were set’ to complete the amendment of the Media Services Act of 2016, some journalists have said they are waiting to see its implementation.
Speaking to The Citizen in Dar es Salaam yesterday, the journalists said the government’s promises usually take a long time to be implemented, explaining that they would like to see the amendment bill tabled in Parliament in February next year.
Arodia Peter, wants the oppressive Act to be amended as soon as possible so that the media industry can grow and journalists can work more freely.
“We commend the government for involving stakeholders in every step, but those commendations will not be meaningful if such amendments are not made at the right time,” said Ms Peter.
Another journalist, Manjale Paul said the nation is supposed to have good laws that will stimulate development, investment, freedom of information, and expression.
On Monday, the minister met with the Stakeholders of the Coalition on the Right to Information (CoRI) and received proposals for amending the Act.
Mr Nnauye said they see no reason why there should be tension between the government and the media stakeholders, expressing that government’s intention is to create an enabling environment to promote the media industry.
“We want the media industry to be better; that’s why we started the discussion and asked for proposals for the issues raised by media stakeholders, with whom we’ve talked and agreed on how to proceed,” Mr Nnauye said.
In another development, Tanzania Editors’ Forum chairman, Deodatus Balile said there is a good indication about the amendment of the Media Services Act.
“The meeting we held with Minister Nape went well. Government continues to show its commitment. The issue of changing the sections of the Act has its own process, basically, the government has offered us an opportunity to give our proposals before taking the next step,” said Mr Balile.
CoRI’s proposals to the government include the removal of the authority of the Director of Information Services (Maelezo) and instead, a body that, among other things, will deal with arbitration issues should be formed when complaints are made against the media body, instead of the work having to be done by one person.
The media industry stakeholders want an amendment to Article 6(e) that directs newspapers to be licensed instead of registered directly.
They also propose that newspapers should not be run by being issued with licences, but should instead be given permanent or long-term registration, in order to address the challenge of arbitrary cancellations of licences and attract investors.
Other proposals regarding the Act, are amendments of Article 7 (2)(b)(lV), which directs the media to announce or publish news and issues of importance to the nation, as far as it is directed by the government, as the media stakeholders explain that this article interferes with the freedom of editing.
Other complaints have been raised about the Electronic and Postal Communications Act (EPOCA, 2010), the Cybercrime Act (2015), the Right to Information Act (2016) and the Online Content Regulations Act (2018) as amended several times.
