ANC chief whip Nyamezeli Booi is pressing ahead with plans to meet President Kgalema Motlanthe to clarify why he has yet to sign the so-called SABC Bill into law.
Booi said on Thursday afternoon that he still planned to meet with Motlanthe to ask the president why this Bill and the two Scorpions Bills had not been signed.
”I will be meeting him,” he said, but declined to elaborate on his concerns, because ”I have already said enough”.
Earlier, the Argus newspaper quoted Booi as saying: ”Why hasn’t he signed it? We have no insight into what is happening. Parliament has done its job. As a chief whip of the party I am concerned about that.”
The ANC’s alliance partners, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party also complained on Thursday that Motlanthe had not yet signed the SABC bill.
”The SACP regards this delay as unfortunate and a major stumbling block for us to move swiftly to transform the public broadcaster into a truly public broadcaster consistent with the resolutions of Polokwane,” the party said.
The Bill gives Parliament the power to axe the board of the public broadcaster.
Cosatu urged Motlanthe ”to sign the Bill and the government to implement it, without any further delay, so that the SABC can become a genuine public broadcaster”.
The SACP also welcomed Booi’s decision to take up the matter with the president.
”We are happy that Parliament will be taking up this issue with the president and we wish to express our full support to this engagement,” the trade union federation said. – Sapa