Has Zimbabwe introduced new rules for music industry? - ZimFact
Ngoni Mhuruyengwe
November 12, 2019
Former Arts minister Kazembe Kazembe
CLAIM: The Zimbabwe government has introduced new rules governing the music industry, among them licences for performers, permits for music videos and rules on how long a singer must perform.
VERDICT: False.
A post has circulated on Zimbabwean social media, claiming that Zimbabwe has introduced regulations on musicians.
The message, posted on the Zimbabwe United Citizens Undertaking – Zimucu Facebook page and shared widely on WhatsApp, makes various claims. Among these are suggestions that “every artist shall need a license to operate in Zimbabwe” and that “it’s Illegal to Practice Public Entertainment when you have no license from the Ministry.”
This is not true.
The article is, in fact, an edited version of posts that circulated on Ugandan social media in January 2019, some of which referred to proposed regulations under that country’s Stage Plays and Public Entertainment Act 2018.
The post now being circulated in Zimbabwe only replaces Ugandan references from those earlier posts to add Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Sports, Arts and Recreation.
In addition, the viral post attributes the regulations to the “Minister of Sport, Arts and Recreation Kazembe Kazembe”. In fact, Kazembe was appointed to that Ministry in 2017, but has, since then, been moved to the Ministry of ICT Posts and Courier Services in September 2018 before his appointment as Minister of Home Affairs and National Heritage in November 2019.
CONCLUSION:
The claim that the Government of Zimbabwe is to regulate how musicians perform is false. It is a fake message derived from previous posts that circulated in Uganda in January 2019.
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