Angola: ZAP Viva channel shuts down, dismisses hundreds of workers

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Angola: ZAP Viva channel shuts down, dismisses hundreds of workers

8:51 CAT | 14 Jan 2022

File photo: Lusa

The ZAP Viva channel, which had been suspended in Angola since April last year, will close and lay off hundreds of employees, the Angolan press reported on Wednesday.

This is the second channel to close its doors following the decision of the Ministry of Telecommunications, Information Technology and Media, which forced the suspension of the channels alleging “non-conformities,” after Vida TV, which ended its activities in July 2021, leaving over 300 professionals unemployed.

The news was published by PlatinaLine website, according to which the workers were fired due to the long period of inoperability of the channel in Angola, as it only broadcasted in Portugal and Mozambique.

Contacted by Lusa, an official ZAP source said they had no information to give.

Angolan artists and public figures have since expressed their solidarity and regretted the closure of the channel, as has businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, owner of telecommunications operator ZAP, whose social shares were seized in December 2019, at the request of the Luanda provincial court.

On her Instagram account, Isabel dos Santos, who has been living outside Angola since her father, former President José Eduardo dos Santos, left power and is facing several legal proceedings in the country, expressed “affection and admiration” for her colleagues at ZAP and said she was “heartbroken”, expressing hope to “return one day”.

ZAP Viva workers on Tuesday held a prayer of thanks that circulated on social media for the opportunity to work and support their families over the past nine months.

In September last year, the Angolan operator announced a gradual process of redundancies following the suspension of the ZAP Viva channel, saying it was carrying out “the necessary steps to resume broadcasting in national territory,” despite “no timeframe for resolution in sight.

Without mentioning how many jobs were at stake, ZAP said at the time that it was “taking several measures to optimise different operational areas”, including human resources allocated to the ZAP Studios Unit, which is responsible for producing television content, including ZAP Viva.

ZAP is the result of a joint venture between Portuguese telecommunications company NOS (30%) and SOCIP – Sociedade de Investimentos e Participações, S.A. (100% controlled by Isabel dos Santos) that provides satellite television to Angola and Mozambique. The ZAP VIVA channel is available in Portugal via NOS.

On 21 April 2021, the Angolan government suspended the channels Record TV África, ZAP Viva and Vida TV, a measure justified by “legal inconsistencies”, also suspending the provisional registers of newspapers, magazines, news websites and radio stations with no effective activity in the last two years, a list of which was never made public.

In the case of Record TV Africa, owned by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD), which is involved in several controversies and lawsuits in Angola, the ministry said that the company had a foreign citizen as its managing director, as well as foreign journalists who were not accredited.

On the other hand, the companies providing pay-TV, namely TV CABO, SA, DSTV ANGOLA, SA, FINSTAR – owner of ZAP TV, were duly legalised, but were distributing the channels ZAP Viva, Vida TV and Rede Record without the registration to exercise the activity of television in Angola, which led to the suspension.

At the time, the ministry said that its action was aimed at adjusting the process of granting the definitive registration for exercising the activity to media companies and gave no further explanation to date.

Organisations such as the Union of Angolan Journalists and the Institute for Media in Southern Africa (MISA-Angola) have expressed concern over this decision, as it jeopardises the plurality of information, which is now only broadcast by public channels, controlled by the Angolan state, and questioned the laws invoked for the suspension.

Source: Lusa