Macra revokes Rainbow TV licence
Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) has revoked Television Content Licence for Rainbow Television because of “a substantial breach of a condition of the licence, namely failure to pay annual licence fees set under the licence.
A statement from Macra says the revocation is effective 30 days from June 9, 2022.
Rainbow Television station manager Aubrey Kusakala told Nation Online in an interview that as a station, they wrote Macra last month requesting for a 90-day extension to finish paying for the accumulated fees arrears which now stand at K10 million.
However, the station got no response until when they received a letter dated June 8 informing them of the revocation of the license.
Kusakala wondered why Macra would go ahead to revoke their license when they have been making strides to pay off the fees.
“The way they have written the communique is as if we have not been paying anything at all. But as I’m talking to you now, there are some broadcasters who owe Macra higher sums of money than us, some up to K21 million but we haven’t seen or heard that their licences have been revoked .”
“I have been engaging Macra officials since getting the letter, I have even spoken with the Director General, Daud Suleman, who is currently outside the country and he has promised that he will take our issue to their board of directors as they are the ones who are responsible for such decisions.”
The station, well-known for hard hitting politics and governance topical issues in programs such as Katsukuluza, employs about 80 people and Kusakala observes that the revocation is not in tandem with the Tonse administration’s job creation initiative as it is directly killing jobs.
” As regulator, they should lead in creation of enabling environment for broadcasters to thrive;already it is hard to run a television station in Malawi.
“In February, they called for a meeting for all broadcasters to understand our situation leading to failure to pay the licence fees, we made our commitment and we have been honouring it and we were due to finish by last month, that’s when we asked for a further 90-day extension, learning from what others were also given by Macra,” he added.
Meanwhile, Kusakala says they are engaging their legal team on how best to deal with the situation, knowing well that it may take until the lapse of the given 30-day period for the Macra board to meet and deliberate on their issue.
