Conrad Mupesa
Mashonaland West Bureau.
THE attainment of Vision 2030 as espoused by President Mnangagwa is achievable if the media play their part in communicating positive and developmental stories, Zimpapers board chairman Mr. Tommy Sithole said yesterday.
He was speaking to the Mashonaland West Bureau team in Chinhoyi during his tour of the new provincial offices that house all three journalism units of Zimbabwe’s largest media group: Digital and Publishing (DAP), Radio Broadcasting (RBD) and ZTN, which runs the television services.
Zimpapers chief executive Mr. Pikirayi Deketeke, board member Mrs. Maidaano Ziyambi, chief finance officer Mr. Farai Matanhire, and other senior officers from Zimpapers accompanied the chairman.
The tour was to check the state of preparedness before the official opening of Platinum FM radio station next week by Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa.
The radio station marks the expansion and relocation of Nyaminyami FM, which was based in Kariba and confined only to Hurungwe and Kariba listeners.
Its relocation speaks to the Government’s developmental agenda in line with living no place and person behind.
Said Mr. Sithole: “The President spoke about communication one day when he was evaluating his ministers. Although we are not directly evaluated, the people who manage us are there so we need to play our part.
“By having this fancy and nice place to work, we are saying we must have a nice place from which to deliver this Vision 2030.”
The state-of-the-art Chinhoyi office has been designed in such a way that workers operate in a friendly and conducive environment. While the board and management were addressing concerns of the staff including good remuneration, Zimpapers was also ensuring that the working environment of its workers met world-class standards.
“For me, the happiness of the workers is absolutely crucial, and I know we can never make you 100 percent happy, but don’t ever think that we are not concerned. We appreciate what you are doing and if we all put our efforts into this thing (operations of Zimpapers), we will see positive and better results in no time.”
Workers had to endure the constraints bedeviling the organisation, but find ways to circumvent them for positive results.
“It is our wish that you get a liveable salary. We know things are difficult and your senior executives are looking into that.”
The board and management looked at the state of the business, and how it made money, but primarily it look at the welfare of workers.
“Zimbabwe is targeting to reaching an upper-middle-income economy class by the year 2030 and Zimpaper’s positive and developmental coverage plays a critical role in achieving this.”
Mr. Sithole, who was impressed by the work done at the Chinhoyi office, challenged the converged team to help expose the aspirations of the community it is serving.
Platinum FM is currently covering most parts of the Zvimba, Makonde, Hurungwe, Kariba, and Chegutu districts.
It buttresses the work by The Herald, The Sunday Mail, Star FM, and other publications and radio stations under the Zimpapers stable.
Mr. Deketeke said the new converged offices were a test of the mode of communication that the group was expected to roll out throughout the country.
“You are representing not only the aspirations of Zimpapers but that of the country. For Chinhoyi to attain city status, you have to push that narrative. If we can do this here, we can do it throughout the country, so it becomes a bit of opportunity for us as a company,” he said.
