The Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (nbc) says it will cover all political party and entity manifestos on all its platforms.
In 2014, the nbc adopted a policy framework for elections, which has guided the national broadcaster in providing equal and fair broadcasting airtime to all political parties.
"We also have the Broadcast Code, which is regulated by CRAN. Now where we are, as the nbc, is to always make sure that all parties are getting a fair share of space on radio and television in far as talking about the things they need to do. At a point, as we are leading to elections, we will meet with political parties, and then we will have to decide how many rallies they plan to have because remember that from a resource perspective, those meetings are important," said nbc DG Stanley Similo.
With just two months before Namibians head to the polls, political parties have begun launching their manifestos. Similo says the nbc will provide coverage to all parties and entities.
"Now, what is beginning to happen is that parties are starting to launch their manifestos, and for us, the manifestos we will cover with no restrictions around that, and the reasons for that are simple: it's through the manifestos that the respective political parties can tell whoever they want to go vote for them. And we believe that, as the nbc, our mandate dictates that people must have enough information in terms of hearing what all the parties will be saying and why the people should vote for them."
The Director General also revealed that the broadcaster is preparing for the upcoming elections.
"About 2 weeks ago, I just commenced with the workshop on how to deal with issues related to the elections and how we should be covering them from our newsrooms, our journalists general programmes, and all that. As of last week, we started with a process where the in-house trainer, from a perspective of training, is busy training all our journalists, and it will extend to all the regions because our state of readiness must be based on new trends."