There is something appropriate about the African National Congress’s decision to endorse Pik Botha for the new board of the SABC. This is the man who sat in a Cabinet that fashioned the SABC into a crude instrument of propaganda for the previous ruling party.
Many of the details of the National Party’s corrupt stranglehold on institutions like the SABC – the backhanders, the jobs for pals and the bottomless expense accounts – have never been fully exposed. But what is becoming apparent is that the new SABC is content to perpetuate some of these unsavoury traditions.
It is more than two months since this newspaper first reported the existence of an explosive report into the corporation’s commissioning practices. The probe, carried out by KPMG’s forensic team, is understood to present damning evidence that top officials at the public broadcaster took kickbacks when doing their commissioning rounds. The report has been circulating among a few chosen executives, but there has been a conspicuous silence surrounding its release to the general public – or even the public broadcaster itself.
If the SABC were a private company, its shareholders would be clamouring for full disclosure and the release of the report. The public broadcaster has no shareholders, but the general public supports it through television licence fees.
The SABC should not have to wait for demands of disclosure; it should seize the moral high ground itself and lead the way in setting standards for corporate candour in South Africa.
Of course this not what we have come to expect from the SABC, which is struggling with the notion of what it means to be a public broadcaster. Transparency, for instance, is being jettisoned in favour of a cover-up.
When the Mail & Guardian reported on the KPMG document in August, some executives even dared to suggest that no such investigation had taken place, while others tried to obfuscate by claiming there was merely a general audit of the SABC’s purchasing procedures. This week, the office of the corporation’s chief executive conceded the report existed, and said its conclusions would be released once the board had perused the document.
Thus the endorsement of Botha makes a lot of sense. His doctrine of transparency is in keeping with the apparatchiks who have seamlessly replaced the grey-shoed Broederbonders who once ruled the airwaves. This is the selfsame corporation that threatens viewers who do not pay their TV licences with attaching their personal property. Perhaps the SABC should hold fire until gets its own house in order.
Bolster democracy
The public hearings to be held in Parliament next week on the Katz commission proposals to grant limited tax benefits to the non-profit sector will, hopefully, give a clear signal that Parliament and the government will take positive steps to encourage and consolidate a sector that is critical to our democracy.
The government’s record on this score since 1994 has been ambivalent. There has been plenty of verbal support for NGOs, most recently by Deputy President Jacob Zuma and Minister of Education Kader Asmal, but the practical backing on the ground has been lacking. There have also been spats such as the attack on NGOs by former president Nelson Mandela at the African National Congress’s congress in Mafikeng in 1997. The situation today is that many of these organisations are struggling to survive, largely because of the steady withdrawal of foreign funding to this sector.
We can only endorse what the Non-Profit Partnership has said in its submission to the portfolio committee on finance: “The social development needs of modern society cannot be provided by the state alone. The country’s development needs can only be addressed through collaborative partnerships between the state and civil society.”
The hearings on the Katz commission proposals provide a golden opportunity for Parliament and the government to demonstrate that they embrace these goals.
The commission has called for significant changes in the tax system to help the non- profit sector acquire greater financial security. These proposals have received widespread support in the non-profit sector and from the Institute for Chartered Accountants.
We urge the the portfolio committee and the Department of Finance to endorse the Katz approach, instruct the department to draw up the necessary legislation and pass the amendments this year. This is an opportunity to strengthen and consolidate democratic structures.
IT WOULD BE SAD AND SHORT-SIGHTED IF INSTEAD THEY CHOSE TO HIDE BEHIND BUREAUCRATIC LANGUAGE TO AVOID MAKING A POSITIVE RESPONSE.