MONDAY, 8.00AM:
COMMUNICATIONS minister Jay Naidoo has announced a committee of “stakeholders” to advise him on broadcasting issues ranging from foreign ownership to the effects of competition on the SABC to Internet and satellite policies and the need for a school of broadcast journalism
The part-time committee will be chaired by University of the North vice chancellor Njabulo Ndebele, and include Telkom chairman Dikgang Moseneke, and representatives of various unions including the SA Union of Journalists and the Media Workers Association. The most controversial appointments are of disgraced IBA co-chairmen Peter de Klerk and Sebeletso Mokone-Matabane, who were both obliged to resign in May after a scathing report by the auditor general. But Naidoo says they will only represent the IBA until their replacements are announced.
Naidoo’s aim is to create a single coherent framework for public and commercial broadcasting, which will require reviews of the IBA Act, the Telecommunications Act and the SABC Act. The committee has ten weeks in which to draw up a Green Paper, followed by a White Paper in five months and final legislation in a year.
BUSINESS BRIEFS
JCI STARTS TALKS ON COLLIERY SALE MINING house Johannesburg Consolidated Investments said on Monday it was in the early stages of negotiations on the sale of its coal business Tavistock Colliery, which recently bought Shell SA’s coal interests for R440-million. And it emerged on Monday that Gold Fields Coal has joined Lonrho’s Duiker Mining in the race to buy Tavistock. Gold Fields Coal chairman Barbara said the company has made an initial cash offer through holding comapny Gold Fields SA.
WORLD BANK’S R150m EURORAND BOND THE World Bank on Monday launched a R150-million five-year step-down Eurorand bond on Monday. The “step-down” bond carries a first-year coupon of 15,75%, falling to 13,75% in year two and 13,00% thereafter.