Radio Zibonele was taken off the airwaves by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) this afternoon (Wednesday 20 July) after allegedly failing to obtain a broadcaster’s license.
The station, at the heart of Khayelitsha, has been battling to obtain the license since 2018. After nearly four years, the curtain finally came down as the broadcasting authority finally decided to pull the plug, drawing widespread unhappiness in the community.
Lonwabo Peter, a member of the community task team fighting for the re-opening of the station, told City Vision they are working around the clock to get the station back on air.
“The station is closed in agreement between Zibonele and Icasa,” he said.
“If there is no amicable solution we will re-open the station by force.”
Chief Executive Officer of the station Mawande Jara said they will have a “special meeting” with the authorities to discuss the matter on Thursday 28 July.
“The issue here is a broadcasting license which the ICASA refused to grant us citing that there are some documents that are missing in our application. The issue of application started in 2019 where we applied and they didn’t approved our application cited the same reason. And we applied again in 2020 the ICASA disapproved it again,” explained Jara.
He said they requested to broadcast till Thursday 28 July but ICASA refused.