Zimbabwe government ‘drafting policies for artists’

Speaking on the sidelines of reverend TT Chivaviro’s Maranatha album launch in Harare on 4 April, Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha told The Herald that the government was scoping the arts sector for its potential to make money and support artists.

“As government we support local production,” he said. “I want to make reference to what we are doing at various levels. Most of the time we talk about trade we make reference to tangible goods but we are moving to what we term trading services, which is a new area of focus that refers to intangible things that can be converted into value. Those include production of music, art and talent. We are negotiating to come up with rules that govern this particular area.”

Bimha also said although policy negotiations were currently being held at regional level, his department was also making efforts to promote them at national level.

“At national level we are looking at how do we promote those who are involved, and support can be in the form of protecting the local production from imports like we did in SI64 (control of goods law), but it can be in the form of duty that we levy on goods that we import and duty that we remove on goods that provide the services to those who are service providers.

“We are looking into it and identifying those areas and then to say, as far as musicians are concerned what duties can we remove? For example, equipment which they have to import,” Bimha said.

He also invited arts industry players to share ideas on the issue.

Meanwhile, Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Christopher Mushohwe, who was a guest of honour at the launch, said Chivaviro would be the ambassador for an upcoming gospel channel.

“We are in the process of finalising the digitisation process and as government we will be dedicating one of the channels to gospel music. We have chosen Rev Chivaviro and Baba Manyeruke, among other gospel musicians, to provide content for the channel that will be on soon,” Mushohwe said.