Jubie Matlou
Moutse Community Radio is a station in transition. Serving the sprawling rural villages of Dennilton in Mpumalanga, it started out as the modest operation of a group of rural women, but has become a political football as others jostle for a share in its success.
The station, ordered to broaden its appeal, has embarked on a transformation process that has been punctuated by tensions and in-fighting, as well as charges of political manipulation and financial irregularities.
It owes its origins to a group of rural women who sought to use radio as a vehicle for development. After three years of lobbying the community, donors and NGOs, the station was granted a temporary 12- month broadcasting licence by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA).
For the first time in South African broadcasting history, ordinary women from rural villages were in charge of a radio station – as presenters behind the microphone and as managers, either marketing the station to potential advertisers or keeping its financial books. Programmes about child care, health, households, security and gardening dominated the airwaves. The station went on to inspire other rural communities to follow suit.
However, the IBA recommended during the second round of the broadcasting licence applications that the station should broaden its base and draw in other sections of the community, such as youth, the disabled and children, and allow its programmes to reflect the wide diversities in the community.
So in December the Moutse Rural Women’s Movement brought in different presenters and began handling broader subjects.
The station’s transformation blues came to a head two months later, when volunteer presenters threatened to silence its airwaves through strike action if management failed to address their grievances – the lack of transport or a transport allowance, a dearth of accommodation and slack security at the isolated radio station, particularly for women presenters.
The second annual general meeting, held last weekend, debated its problems. The meeting heard that some financial records are missing, and that R187E000 could not be accounted for.
Tempers flared when the station’s board reported alleged political interference from the local African National Congress parliamentary constituency office.
The meeting was told that a stand-off between the board and the constituency office ensued when the board attempted to ”clean up the station” by dissolving the management committee. Two disgruntled individuals from the old management then went to the constituency office to seek support.
Thabo Madihlaba, board chair, said restructuring had been introduced to redress the ”inefficiency and ineffectiveness” of the station’s management.
The exercise involved realigning programmes, clustering departments and setting up a new management team, in which all the posts had to be readvertised.
However, those individuals who were not happy with the process took the matter to the constituency office. When the constituency office requested a meeting with the board the latter took offence and regarded the proposed meeting as tantamount to political interference.
Madihlaba maintains that the board’s intervention in the station’s affairs was an internal matter that ”didn’t warrant interference from external forces, particularly the constituency office. The board is an independent formation charged with the responsibility of overseeing the affairs of the station. A call by the constituency office for the board to account for its actions, as opposed to, say, a general council or AGM of the station, amounts to political interference that compromises the role of a body established to protect the integrity of the radio station.”
Mpho Chiloane, constituency office co- ordinator, dismissed the allegations as attempts by the board to protect itself. ”I don’t see the constituency office’s request to the board to explain its actions [introducing a restructuring exercise in the station and firing management] as political interference. The radio station is a property of the whole community, and any organisation is entitled to question how the radio station operates,” said Chiloane.
”We tried on several occasions to meet with the board, and we were unsuccessful. We then continued to call a meeting of community organisations that resolved to establish a task team to inquire into the problems affecting the smooth running of the station,” Chiloane said.
Nkopane Maphiri, National Community Radio Forum programme officer, described Moutse Radio’s problems as common to the entire community radio sector where different formations ”battle for the soul of a radio station. Such battles have a positive element, allowing a community to assert its role in the ownership and running of a station.”
Maphiri argues that charges of financial irregularities are often related to non- compliance with accounting procedures, whereby station operatives use income for petty cash, for example, or there are no matching receipts for requisitions. ”In- depth training in financial management can prevent problems of this nature in future,” said Maphiri.