established POTRAZ and BAZ to include the expanded roles of the merged parastatal. The second option is to come up with a new Act which establishes the merged parastatal. Digitisation Zimbabwe is now way beyond the 17 June 2015 International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU), deadline for migration from analogue to digital broadcasting, a development it attributes to lack of funds. The country also missed the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) June 2016 deadline. Nick Mangwana, the Permanent Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, in 2018 said the digitisation project needed direct funding of an estimated $100 million for its completion. He made this revelation when he submitted his ministry’s budget estimates to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Media and Broadcasting. Mangwana warned that inadequate budget allocations would further delay completion of the digitisation project. Unfortunately, Mangwana’s pleas went unheeded as only $45 million was allocated to the ministry. This amount is meant to cover the ministry’s administrative and project costs including the digitisation exercise. Even if the whole amount of $45 million was dedicated to digitisation, it would still woefully fall short of getting the job done. This is unfortunate because Mangwana said government would only start licensing more television and radio stations once the digitisation process is complete. This therefore, makes the advancement of media plurality contingent on the completion of the digitisation exercise. This will most likely perpetuate the current situation where for example, community radio stations have gone unlicensed for the past 17 years. MISA Zimbabwe is therefore appealing for the expeditious conclusion of the digitisation process to further open the broadcasting field to private players as well as community-based broadcasters. MISA Zimbabwe monitors developments in this regard because of their impact on the national spectrum in the areas of broadcasting, telecommunications, free expression and access to information. This is because the digital dividend which will emerge from this migration process will increase the national capacity in every facet of communication.