Dodoma:The Universal Communications Fund [UCSAF] has said that any Tanzanian who needs to start a radio station anywhere in Tanzania, especially in rural areas, should go to the fund’s offices.
Speaking at the annual meeting of the ABC2025 media, the Head of the Northern Zone, Mr. Muhinda Iddy said the main goal of the fund is to promote the Department of Information so that Tanzanians can seize this opportunity.
Mr. Iddy said the government has established a fund and allocated 6.27 billion shillings to build radio and television towers and that 19 projects out of the 11 projects are already underway.
He said the fund is not commercial so it charges very low costs for radios to use UCSAF towers unlike the towers of telephone companies.
“The fund was established to help the community, many radios are in the city, this fund was established to help more community radios be established in the countryside so whoever wants to start a community radio, come and we will help him”, said Mr. Iddy
He said that apart from building towers, they are also building Studios and renting them out to people who need to use them to get information and various advertisements to reach rural people.
Mr. Iddy said that so far they have built many towers in different regions and mentioned some of the areas where they have built the towers as Mlimba, Ludewa, Njombe, Ngara, Mbinga, Tanga, Arusha, Makete, Kiteto, Geita, Kyela and Mtama.
He said the costs they charge are low because UCSAF does not do business so their customers contribute to the costs of running the towers. Their customers should avoid the high taxes they are charged for opening a Radio through UCSAF towers.
The conference is organized by the Ministry of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports under the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority [TCRA].
