Calvary Family Church (CFC) Radio risks being closed by the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) due to outstanding license fees.
Director General of MACRA, Daudi Suleman said Calvary Family Church Radio was given six months till November 21, 2022 to cover its annual license fee of K11.5 Million in failing to do so, the radio’s license will be cancelled.
Apart from Calvary Radio, MACRA also said that there are other Radio Stations that managed to fix their license fees to a given date of November 13, 2022.
In addition to that, this year alone MACRA has withdrawn licenses for other media stations including; Ufulu FM, Ufulu Television, Galaxy FM, Power FM 101 and Rainbow Television for failure to pay their license fees.
There are Some media houses whose licenses were in danger of being revoked but they managed to fix them like; MIJ FM, Angaliba Radio and TV, Ndirande FM, Voice of Livingstonia and Chisomo FM.
In a statement by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) which was released in August condemned the closing of media houses saying journalists had already raised worries that annual fees to Daudi Suleman are pegged in US dollars and are exorbitant.
“The media body said the cancellation of the licenses under the Chakwera administration is washing away the media and democratic gains of the past 29 years”, MISA said.
MISA continued; “The issues that are leading to the revocation of licenses are not new. Past administrations did not close down media stations for delaying to pay license fees. We believe the decision not to close down stations was due to respect for fundamental rights including media freedom, access to information and economic rights of hundreds of Malawians employed by the affected media outlets”.
Meanwhile, MACRA Director General, Daudi Suleman insists that the board is just following rules and regulations of the body.
