The weak economic base of media owners has also led to alliances between the state, private media owners and business tycoons at the expense of press freedom. In order to survive, advertising needs and political interests have overwhelmed media owners. The media has been hard-hit by taxation and high import duties on printing materials. The government has yet to respond to the frequent demands put forward by printers and publishers to reduce taxes. It must also be noted that due to the economic constraints, and communication and transport snags, the media is largely urban-based, denying over 80 per cent of the population, based in rural areas, access to the free and immediate flow of information. The majority of the population relies on the sole state-owned radio station, Radio Tanzania Dar-es-Salaam (RTD). Newspaper circulation figures are also low, compared to other African countries, as a result of these factors coupled with a dwindling literacy level in most rural areas. Frameworks for media regulation Institutional frameworks for regulating the media have not proved conducive as demonstrated by the inability of the government to allocate more funds to improve the profession of journalism. The fact that functions and policies of different government institutions overlap is also a problem. For instance, while the Minister of Education and Culture is not directly responsible for regulating the information and broadcasting sector, in October 2005 the minister issued a directive to ban a civil society organisation, HakiElimu, from undertaking and publishing any further research about the Tanzanian education system. In this instance, it was not clear which law to ban freedom of expression was applied. There are also problems with the legal and policy frameworks for regulating the media, due to the state’s failure to repeal and amend draconian laws in the national statutes. The executive arm of the state still uses its excessive powers vested in several of these laws to suppress press freedom either covertly or openly through summoning publishers or journalists. It should be noted that if the information and broadcast policy is translated into a single law, Tanzania would have the most conducive regulatory mechanism for the media sector in sub-Saharan Africa. At an institutional level, there are several centres of government authority, which can infringe upon media freedom. Some of these are the powers of district commissioners, regional commissioners and the minister responsible for information to ban journalists from executing their duties. Media researchers have compiled 15 pieces of legislation, which contradict the existing policy, hence affecting press freedom. They include the National Security Act of 1970, the Newspapers Act of 1996, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority Act, the Tanzania Broadcasting Services ACT of 1993, amended in 2003, and the Films and Stage Plays Act No. 4, 1976. Other pieces are the Regional Administration Act of 1997, which empowers ward executive officers, district commissioners and regional commissioners to detain a person, including journalists, and the Penal Code of 1975, which has led to the jailing of journalists. Contempt of the Court, under section 114 (d) of the Penal Code, the Prisons Ordinance, the Police Ordinance and the law on Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF) all ban journalists from covering activities of these institutions and their staff without official permission. Other repressive laws include the excessive constitutional powers of the President, which among So This Is Democracy? 2005 -119- Media Institute of Southern Africa