Jacquie Golding-Duffy
A Cape Town-based Muslim community radio station is being hauled before the Independent Broadcasting Authority following an alleged contravention of its licence conditions.
Voice of the Cape, which shares air-time with Radio 786, is to appear before the IBA’s Broadcasting Monitoring and Complaints Committee (BMCC) on July 9 for allegedly failing to inform the IBA that it changed its management and broadcasting venue.
The community radio station is one of the first to cater specifically for the Muslim community, which, like other disadvantaged groups in the past, had no medium tailored to its needs.
The Western Cape radio station broadcasts Eastern and devotional music, provides a news service and phone-ins and has a regular quota of religious content which takes the form of lectures, question- and-answer sessions and sometimes debates.
According to the IBA, the station allegedly failed to ensure that detailed records of transmitted programmes were kept, neglected to submit quarterly complaints returns as stipulated in the licence conditions and did not keep programme records for May.
However, problems at the station seem to run much deeper than the odd administration detail being forgotten.
According to one staffer who refused to be named, there exists a rift between management and staff which stems from a clash in ideologies.
He claims management at Voice of the Cape consists of people who are from the old order. Colleagues and listeners feel management is out of touch with their needs as they have a far more modern approach to Islam.
“The differences between the factions are irreconciliable,” he says, adding that management attempts to suffocate the station by limiting programme content and not allowing for open debate on sensitive issues of Islam.
Allegations also implicate the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) which is the predominant organisation representing Muslims in Cape Town and which controls about 80% of Cape Town’s mosques. The MJC played a key role in the establishment of the radio station through the Muslim Broadcasting Corporation, which oversees the Voice of the Cape.
Some staffers allege the corporation is a front for the MJC which they say wants a “hold over the radio station”.
However, station manager Imam Alli says the allegations stem from a small group of disgruntled staffers.
“Although the MJC was party to the radio station being set up, allegations of them controlling us are untrue,” he says.
On the contravention of its licence conditions, Alli says it was an “oversight” that the IBA was not informed when the radio station shifted premises. “It was a temporary measure while the old radio facilities were being attended to,” he says.