Victory as Media Complaints Commission finally registered

The long-awaited Media Complaints Commission (MCC), a media self-regulatory framework for Swaziland, has finally been registered by the government after a long-drawn registration process spanning the last four years.

The registration certificate was finally issued by the Registrar of Companies on 7 June 2011. The registration of the MCC marks the end of a 14-year struggle by the media in Swaziland to operationalize media self-regulation. However, it is the beginning of another chapter that will culminate in the MCC receiving and adjudicating on complaints from the public about the media.
 
As part of making the MCC operational, media stakeholders are expected to re-launch the body before it starts to receive media complaints from the public.
 
The process can be traced back to 1997 when Parliament threw out a government attempt to regulate the media by statute and ordered the Minister for Information to assist the media set up a self-regulatory framework.
 
Since then a lot of effort went into setting up the MCC which was finally embraced by a section of the Swazi media in 2005. On 3 May 2007 an attempt was made by the media to publicly launch the MCC in a bid to pre-empt another threat by the government to pilot a Bill in parliament for statutory regulation.
 
However, there were difficulties in making the MCC operational as the media insisted on having it registered with government to give the body legal standing. That then saw the beginning of a four-year battle to register the MCC with the government. In 2009 government made two attempts to pilot a Bill in parliament to regulate the media by statute. The media fought hard to resist the government attempt.
 
With strong lobbying from MISA Swaziland and other media stakeholders, government finally backed down and agreed to give media self-regulation a chance. Over the past year the Minister for Information, Communications and Technology, Nelisiwe Shongwe, worked with the media to ensure a speedy registration of the MCC. The efforts finally paid off on 7 June 2011 when the MCC registration certificate was finally issued.
 
MISA Swaziland has played a strong supporting role since the process started in 1997 and raising funds for most activities and will continue to do so until the MCC is fully operational and serving its purpose. //End//
 
Reagan Malumo
Programme Specialist: Media Freedom Monitoring and Research
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Regional Secretariat
21 Johann Albrecht St
Private Bag 13386
Windhoek
Namibia
Phone: +264 61 232 975
Fax: +264 61 248 016
Mobile: +264 81 311 2626
Official Email: reagan(@)misa.org
Private Email: reagan32002(@)yahoo.com

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