A joint team of the SABC and the communications ministry is to thrash out amendments to the controversial Broadcasting Amendment Bill ahead of next month’s public hearings on the legislation.
The team will meet from next week to discuss and draft possible amendments, particularly to clauses dealing with the ministerial vetting of SABC policies on news, programming and language, and the deletion of guaranteed editorial independence for the public broadcaster.
In the wake of wide condemnation of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill as a move to control the SABC, the SABC board and Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and Broad- casting Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri agreed to the joint team at their regular bi-monthly meeting. It followed last week’s meeting of the African National Congress national executive committee sub-committee on communication, which upheld the SABC’s editorial independence.
The party said it had fought for freedom of expression and to ”liberate the airwaves from state control”.
SABC spokesperson Ihron Rensburg said the joint team was set up ”to review specific clauses with a view to proposing amendments”. These would be presented separately by the broadcaster and communication department at the parliamentary hearings from September 16.
Also up for discussion by the joint team will be the issue of how the SABC can fulfil its mandate to broadcast in all 11 official languages. Various proposals, including the incorporation of two regional indigenous language channels, had already been raised in the meeting between the board and minister, Rensburg said.
The chairperson of the parliamentary communications committee, Nkenke Kekana, said the committee would fully discuss the Bill and engage lawyers in ”interactive law making” as part of the legislative process.
”Whatever we do in the Bill … it will guarantee the SABC’s freedom of expression,” he said.
The Democratic Alliance has sharply criticised the exclusion of Weekly Mail co-founder Anton Harber, now Caxton Professor of Journalism at Wits University, from the Media Development and Diversity Agency board. Only the DA nominated him from among 33 nominations for the six posts on the board. It will vote against the nominations once they are tabled for approval in Parliament.
But it was argued that Harber, now involved in the Internet industry, could be accommodated in the three presidential board appointments reserved for industry players. Former City Press editor Khulu Sibiya and executive chairperson of Primedia Dan Moyane were also not on the list of six recommendations. These are: former Mail & Guardian CEO Govin Reddy, communications consultant Kanyisiwe Mkonza, health journalist Kerry Cullinan, academic Gibson Boloko, media and marketing consultant Chris Moerdyk and advertising executive Nunu Ntshingila.