BOTSWANA’S first independent radio station has been granted a licence, breaking a 33-year government monopoly on broadcasting, the station’s general manager said on Thursday. Radio Yarona FM will broadcast within a radius of about 40km of the capital Gaborone, is expected to be on air within four months, and hopes to draw 50000 listeners, said Moraki Mokgosana. Another independent station is awaiting the outcome of its licence application. The government has controlled radio through two stations, Radio Botswana and RB2 since independence in 1996. Botswana’s first national television station, also to be state controlled, is due to go on air October. The country, with a population of 1,4 million, currently relies on a private television station which relays broadcasts from neighbouring South Africa within a 45-kilometre radius of Gaborone.