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Future of GCR FM in the balance

 

The management of the Giyani Community Radio station (GCR FM) came out with guns blazing early last week, alleging that the Greater Giyani Municipality had threatened to shut down the radio station. The municipality, however, accuses GCR of bad management and not complying with its licensing conditions.

The radio station’s representative, Mr Ntsako Shivambu, alleged that some individuals within the municipality wanted to “hijack” the station’s management, so that they would be in a position to propagate their political agendas.

“The Giyani Municipality are allowing individuals to interfere with the operations of GCR FM,” he said. He stated that, for the past few months, the station had been operating under pressure from individuals from the Giyani Municipality who wanted to take control of the station for their own political agenda in order to stay in power, as well as to prevent the station from voicing people’s concerns over the municipality’s lack of service delivery.

Shivambu added that the municipality wanted to control the radio station’s programme content and the operational system, such as appointing and/or influencing the appointment of a board of directors.

“On 7 February, the municipality used a hammer to gain access to the radio station's offices and even cut off the electricity supply to the radio station,” he said. “However, we resorted to using a stand-by generator for electricity flow and called the police to monitor the situation.”

He indicated that the municipality and GCR had previously met with representatives from the Department of Communications and ICASA to resolve the issues. According to Shivambu, this meeting did not help because the municipality wanted to impose control measures such as a board elected by the municipality.

The municipality’s spokesperson, Mr Steve Shivambu, issued a media statement last Wednesday wherein he indicated that there are two issues the municipality was concerned about, namely the lapsed lease agreement and concern over the formation and functioning of the GCR board.

“In terms of the lease contract, the lease expired on 19 August 2016,” he stated. “Since then, the lease has never been renewed, (and) as such GCR are illegally occupying municipal property. In terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act, this constitutes an irregular expenditure on the part of the municipality.”

According to the municipality’s calculations, GCR FM owes the municipality at least R390 160 in arrears rent. The municipality had been lending a helping hand to the radio by paying the lease for GCR for the period 19 August 2013 to 19 August 2014.

“During 2012/2013, GCR approached us to help with the establishment of the station, continuous support, accommodation and funding,” Shivambu said. “With the understanding that GCR is a community radio station and not a private enterprise, the municipality agreed to come on board. The municipality became a stakeholder and granted GCR an amount of R100 000 as start-up capital, paid for electricity to Eskom at R9500 per month and paid rental rates and services for the rented property.”

He stated that it therefore became the municipality’s concern when a supposed community radio station that they supported financially, “flouts good governance in the form of a dysfunctional board ... Our interest is only in seeing the station being run correctly and as per its licence agreement and conditions".

He said that the insinuation that the municipality intended to take the station off the air was not true. “Meanwhile, to ensure that a solution to the challenges is found, we shall continue engaging the relevant stakeholders such as ICASA and the Ministry of Communications as we have been doing the past few months,” he said. “All other allegations are nothing but malicious attempts by the station to rubbish our genuine concerns.”

 

Date:20 February 2017

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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