Barberton Community Radio (BCR) station manager, Mduduzi Manana has retained his position as chairman of the Mpumalanga Community Radio Forum (MCRF) during the latter’s annual general meeting held at the local municipal committee room last Friday.

Ten of the 12 managers from various community radio stations in Mpumalanga gathered to elect a new leadership of the forum and to deliberate on challenges faced by the community-based radio stations. The newly elected leadership comprises deputy chairman Carol Kintu, secretary George Maphanga, deputy secretary Ntokozo Silumo and treasurer Thato Mathunyane. The MCRF was first established in 2013 and answers to the National Community Radio Forum.

Radio stations that are part of the forum are Bushbuckgridge Radio, BCR, KaNyamazane Radio, Emalahleni FM, Nkomazi FM, Mashishing FM, Greater Middelburg FM, Nkangala FM, Mkhondo FM, Lekwa FM and Moutse FM.
Manana said one of the burning issues that brought the forum into existence was the apparent corruption taking place in the government communication sector and the supply chain. He revealed that government communicators and supply-chain officials would create and appoint their own companies as agents to do adverts and airtime booking on community radio stations.

“These officials would create these companies, appoint them and subsequently deprive community radio stations of their share of the cake from government. Other officials would go as far as Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal to appoint their companies to do outside broadcast. As to why officials who have their monthly income do that? We don’t know, but clearly these are the people who pose as stumbling blocks in government’s plan for service delivery,” said Manana.

As a result, the forum has decided not to accept business from government through agents or any other middlemen. Part of the purpose of the meeting was also to table reports of the work done by the previous leadership.
“This was equally important to pave the way forward and to evaluate how much progress has been made by the former leadership,” he concluded.