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2.
COST EFFECTIVENESS OF FRANCISTOWN RELAY STATION
DE LA GENTLER
The Committee had before them a memorandum by the Commonwealth Secretary (R(67) 3) on the Francistown relay station.
THE COMMONWEALTH SECRETARY said that at their meeting on 11th January
the Ministerial Committee on Rhodesia had agreed that Frencistown should be
continued for a further period pending a review of its operations; had invited the Ministerial Committee on Information Policy (the R(I) Committee)
to carry out urgently a study of the effectiveness of Francistown in relation
to its cost and to alternative methods of broadcasting to Rhodesia; and had
agreed to give further consideration to the maintenance of Francistown in the
light of this study.
The present rate of expenditure was estimated at £372,000 per annum, which included the cost (£162,000 per annum) of keeping in Francistown British troops, maintained from Aden, to guard the station. The estimated additional cost of training Botswana police to take over these duties was
£200,000, but after a period of five to six months it would then be possible
to replace the troops by police and the net saving in the long term would
thus be considerable. The report of officials had concluded that in terms
of listeners the Francistown station did not, because of jamming, justify
its continuing cost and was involving us in expenditure within the total
available to overseas information, which was badly needed for other purposes. The closure of the station would however be regarded as a major victory for
the regime and would be badly received by Africans. In all the circumstances the R(I) Committee considered that the station should be
continued in operation.
They also recommended that with the agreement of
the Botswana Government, which had now been received, the medium wave
transmitters at Francistown should be switched to overlay frequencies used by the Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation (RBC) in the hope that this would induce the regime to desist from jamming; equipment for this purpose had already been installed. The additional cost of aid to the Botswana Government for the training of police should be accepted and steps should be taken to remove the British guard at Francistown as soon as they could be
relieved by the Botswana police.
In discussion, general agreement was expressed with these proposals.
In particular, the advantage was stressed of taking early steps to secure the agreement of the Botswana Government for the training, under military control with police co-operation, of Botswana police with a view to the
withdrawal of the British troops as soon as possible. Apart from other
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