Recently appointed Minister of Information, Gospel Kazako, went for his first tour at the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), where he told the media that the government will restructure the television station.
The call follows after the station has always been accused of pushing the governing parties’ propaganda, sidelining opposition parties and appointing individuals due to political affiliation. Kazako stressed that though there will be a thorough restructuring of the establishment, the sweep is not a witch-hunt for sympathisers of the ousted Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) regime.
“There is a process right now of sanitising MBC and the entire system of government. MBC has been a very bad boy in the system and we would want to restructure it so that it becomes the media of the people, a public broadcaster. Malawians want their MBC back and we will be sanitising MBC.” said Kazako. Last year, In a `campaign` dubbed “switch off MBC TV”, the station was accused of overlooking the presentation of nomination papers by opposition candidates. Kazako was also quoted saying that MBC must be independent from the government.