Is regional public broadcasting the responsibility of the SABC or of the provinces? The first salvos have been fired in a heated dispute between the premiers and central government, writes Mark Gevisser
A RAGING controversy over North-West premier Popo Molefe’s decision to appoint one of his provincial government’s advisers as director general of the vast Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has prompted Minister of Broadcasting Pallo Jordan to step in.
Jordan visited Mmabatho this week following near-mutiny from the BBC staff after the North-West government’s unilateral appointment of former ANC information and publicity official Solomon Kotane.
The appointment raises questions — as yet unanswerable — about the future of broadcasting services in the former TBVC states, and about whether it is the responsibility of the SABC or of the provinces to provide regional public broadcasting.
Jordan acknowledged this week this was an “area of constitutional woolliness and greyness”, compounded by the fact that “the bantustan inheritance is an impenetrable maze, a bloody tropical forest”. As a matter of urgency, he intends holding a colloquium soon, at which all interested parties — the provinces, the ex-TBVC broadcasters, the SABC, the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and himself — will hammer out a solution.
But, although sources within the broadcasting world say Jordan is unhappy with the North-West’s action, he defended it as “a holding pattern, a pragmatic stopgap until final decisions are made. Kotane’s appointment is only a six-month contract and, by then, hopefully we will have some clarity.”
Just how arcane the bantustan inheritance is was made clear to Jordan by the fact that on June 17 the national government issued a proclamation transferring control of the BBC to the North-West province without his knowledge — although he is the responsible minister. “I saw it in the statute books. I was not consulted.”
Kotane noted that, given the fact that the Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Act was officially handed over to the North-West by the new government, there is nothing untoward about his appointment.
“It is at the discretion of the North-West’s MEC for media and information to appoint a head, and that is what happened. It is not an ideal situation but in the absence of an amended Bop Broadcasting Act, a chaotic situation was brewing here, with lack of accountability, the disappearance of property and the grouping of different factions all trying to control the place. It needed urgent attention,” he said.
But the manner in which he was appointed has been slammed for its lack of transparency by the BBC staff and by the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), which said it was an action “characteristic of a totalitarian regime”, making “a mockery of the government of national unity’s professed commitment to the independence of the broadcast media” and presented “a major reversal of democratic media policies established over the past two years”.
FXI vice-chairman Raymond Louw finds the manner in which Kotane was appointed reminiscent of the way former Bop president Lucas Mangope operated. “Just as has happened at the SABC, there should have been the open and independent appointment of a board of governors first, and this board should have appointed the director general. That way, the independence of Bop broadcasting would have been assured.”
SABC regional radio head Solly Mokoetle expressed serious concern about the move: “We have to challenge the decisions by regional premiers to seize control of facilities, for it violates the independence of the public broadcaster. We fought so hard against national state control of the SABC. We can’t allow a situation now of provincial government control.”
Some observers believe the BBC news services have already become propoganda organs for the new government. “It’s as if Mangope has just been replaced with Mandela and Molefe,” said a broadcasting source.
Kotane is adamant, however, that there will be no government interference in his running of the corporation. “I am a professional journalist and interference in editorial policy is something I loathe. Molefe has repeatedly assured me that there won’t be any such intervention.”
According to Mokoetle and others at the SABC, the Eastern Cape and Northern Transvaal provinces have similar designs on Radio Ciskei, Radio Transkei and Radio Thohoyandou. But Mokoetle emphasised that “these provinces are not the successors to the TBVC states. And if premiers like Molefe view broadcasting facilities as a terrain they can access and manipulate, then don’t all regional premiers have the right to do it? Tokyo Sexwale might as well march in here and say, ‘the whole of Auckland Park is mine’.”
Already, Free State premier Patrick Lekota has written to the SABC board asking for Sesotho Stereo to be moved from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein, because it is not adequately covering the activities of his government.
Lekota, who recently received a drubbing on CCV Newsline and sesotho Stereo for his alleged lack of transparency, was unavailable for comment. But Mokoetle acknowledged that while the Free State premier might have a point about SABC radio’s lack of regional coverage, “our new model for 11 national stations will take care of it”.
He said there were as many seSotho speakers in the PWV as in the Free State, “so you cannot make a decision to move the station in a vacuum”.
According to the constitution, regional governments do have “concurrent competence” over public broadcasting. And, given that charismatic regional premiers like Molefe and Lekota are known to be dissatisfied with the scant resources available to them, their actions are, perhaps, the first salvos in a growing dispute between the provinces and central government over control of facilities.