By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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For those of you joining this series now: At this point in our explanation of how Tanzania has become a media black hole in 2018, we have reached 2015 general election – and Tido Mhando, veteran broadcaster and alumnus-boss of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Idhaa Ya Kiswahili has been hired by Tanzanian conglomerate Azam to set up their brand-new state of the art newsroom.

Mr Mhando – with the help of his crack team of journalists, crew, support staff and Azam’s bottomless pot of gold – cheerfully repeated the sins of 2010 when he was at TBC covering the general election that year. Azam did a great job, overshadowing the wan and hapless NEC yet again.

Spoiler alert: CCM won. This is where we leave Mr Mhando behind and thank him with a final note: At present the government has charged him with misuse of public funds during his stint at TBC...

Cut to 2018. Having won the majority in parliament, CCM passed a law that gives the government the power to gag us creatively, or brutally, their choice.

The Tanzania Media Services Act of 2016 kicked off what I call the Great Silencing. To date, we have seen a number of worrying developments.

As a blogger, I suspended my work when the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority enacted regulations that govern Tanzanian online content early this year. Websites, blogs and other online outlets are required to register at exorbitant fees and there is much confusion as to what can and cannot be done.

There is the usual threat to act upon anyone who “insults the head of state or the republic or goes against our cultural mores” broad, functionally meaningless terms that allow for maximum force to be used by the state should it feel like it.

The manner in which the regulator is applying the Media Services Act thus makes little sense: Satellite TV service providers such as DSTV and Azam and Zuku are forbidden from airing terrestrial channels because: “They are making Tanzanians pay for free television stations.”

Mind you, Tanzania made the switch from analog to digital TV in 2015, several years before the international deadline, forcing all TV owners to buy a decoder to access both free-to-air and paid content. Hmmm.

Guess whom you can reliably watch for “free” on all decoders? That’s right: Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation, the one our taxes pay for. So the least TBC can do is respect out tax shillings and intellect.

The Baraza la Sanaa la Taifa (Basata), the National Arts Council of Tanzania, has also instituted regulations for registration and a code of conduct for musicians, including what they can wear in public/videos.

Artistes have been turned back at the airport en route to international concerts due to lack of a travel permit. And there is more coming down the pipeline (hint: telecommunications).

One regulation after another, the fiction that Tanzania’s economy is doing well and everything is run in a satisfactory manner is becoming the dominant narrative. If that is the story you want to believe, watch TBC.

I can’t watch Tanzanian channels with my current decoder but I sure do know what’s up with Jeff Koinange’s sense of fashion. Still on the fence about the waistcoats… Maybe suspenders would be better?

Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: [email protected]