Sandile Ngidi The fledgling community radio movement was dealt a blow last month with the closure of the South African Community Radio Network (Sacrin). Sacrin was an initiative by the Congress of South African Trade Unions Centre for Democratic Communications, which was launched in 1997 to provide a satellite link-up platform for community radio stations across the country.
Important national and international events such as June 16 and the International Day for Refugees were often observed through a live link of programmes produced by scores of community radio stations across the country, with links to community radio stations in Canada or Europe. At the heart of Sacrins woes is the cost of the live satellite links carried by Sentech the public signal distributor which were reported to have amounted to R35 000 a month. Sacrins programmes are said to have reached close to two-million listeners nationwide through current-affairs programmes that were aimed at enabling communities to grasp and interrogate a range of issues, says the Centre for Democratic Communications director Mervyn Swartz. “We wanted to nourish community-radio content through pulling resources together. Unfortunately the funding was limited to three years after 1994, and we felt it wouldnt be wise to keep Sacrin if it could not pay for itself,” says Swartz. He says the centre has kept the Sacrin project afloat since 1997 by using R3-million seed funding provided by Italian NGO Svugetto Svillupo in 1994. The centres mission is to develop the media and communications capacity of civil society and foster the burgeoning of sustainable community radio stations in South Africa through practical radio production training. “As the funding was not limited to Sacrin but was also for running the Centre for Democratic Communications media training programmes and core overheads such as water and lights, salaries [funds] were bound to dry up at some stage,” Swartz says. However he remains optimistic. “We are confident that not all is lost and that we are definitely still relevant.” Swartz says the centre is looking for potential partners with whom Sacrin can be operated in a sustainable manner. He sees no role for private sector players. “We dont want people whose major interest is making profits. We want the project to retain its community focus and if anyone benefits financially, it has to be the community radio stations themselves.” And this is where National Community Radio Forum founder-member and former Independent Broadcasting Authority councillor Lumko Mtimde, differs. Mtimde, who now works for the Department of Communications, maintains that the Centre for Democratic Communication can do better in terms of enhancing Sacrins sustainability and all options should be explored. “If the service is well-managed and well-run, it can be sustainable because the South African government is committed to ensuring that it is accountable to the people it serves. Given the fact that Sacrin was providing a two-way communication channel for government officials to interact with communities, there can never be a stage when this critical need becomes irrelevant.” Early in the year the centre covered the opening of Parliament, and later the anti-racism and anti-xenophobia conference in Durban. In October Bairds Communications, the public relations agency for Census 2001, used Sacrins satellite links to publicise the census. Swartz believes the role of advocacy and lobbying remains urgent. “Its a big struggle of trying to change attitudes and prove that we too as community radio stations have the critical mass that can add value to an advertiser,” he says.
Ends