Opposition MPs ordered out as TBC reduces live coverage of Bunge sessions

ALVAR MWAKYUSA in Dodoma

 

THE government yesterday defended the decision by the Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC) to reduce airtime for live coverage of Bunge sessions -- citing high costs.

“TBC has been spending about 4.2bn/- each year to foot costs associated with live coverage of the assembly. “We have thus decided to stop the coverage,” the Minister for Information, Culture, Arts and Sports, Mr Nape Nnauye, told MPs here.

He said the costs for running the coverage were unbearable for TBC given the fact that it attracted few adverts to keep it running profitably.

“It should be understood that 75 per cent of programmes on TBC are educative while the remaining 25 per cent are for entertainment; TBC has thus been using its modest revenues from few adverts to foot the live coverage,” Mr Nnauye explained.

Mr Nnauye said proceedings would be recorded and aired at night, arguing that few people are able to watch live coverage during the day due to their commitments.

Soon after the minister’s statement, Kigoma Urban MP Zitto Kabwe (ACT-Maendeleo) asked the chair to suspend the debate on the president’s speech and instead discuss the move by the government to stop live coverage of the assembly’s proceedings.

Mr Zitto argued that it would be unfair for parliamentarians to debate the president’s inaugural speech without live coverage by the state broadcaster.

“The people out there who pay taxes to make TBC running want to see how MPs are debating the speech by President Magufuli. It is thus unfair to continue without live coverage,” the MP charged.

He thus argued that the National Assembly should suspend debating the speech and dwell on the decision by the government to shelve live coverage of proceedings in the House.

The chairman of the session Mr Andrew Chenge postponed the session in order to enable the Steering of the National Assembly to meet and resolve the matter. During evening session, Mr Chenge read out a decision reached by the Steering Committee, directing the assembly to continue with its business without live coverage of TBC.

“The Steering Committee, which met this afternoon under the Chairmanship of Speaker Job Ndugai, has decided that we should continue with our business because no privilege of the parliament has been infringed in absence of live TBC coverage.

Any MP who is not contested by this decision should forward his/her grievance to the Clerk of the National Assembly,” Mr Chenge said while reading out the decision.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Tundu Lissu (Singida East-Chadema) and Opposition Chief Whip sought the guidance of the chair and argued that it was not right for the Steering Committee to decide on issues that could be decided by the presiding chair.

Mr Lissu was joined by other MPs from the opposition camp who stood and interrupted the session. Mr Chenge then ordered out four Chadema legislators for repeatedly defying his directives and interrupting when other MPs were called to debate the inaugural speech by President John Magufuli in November, last year.

The four lawmakers that were initially given the marching orders were Mr Lissu, Arusha Urban MP, Mr Godbles Lema, Pauline Gekul (Babati Urban) and Easter Bulaya (Bunda).

He later ordered out all MPs from the opposition camp after they all stood up in support of their colleagues forcing the chairperson to postpone the session for about 30 minutes during which the MPs were escorted out by police officers who were called in to maintain order.

They were all thrown out of the debating chamber and the National Assembly premises after which MPs from CCM continued with the debate