The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has written a letter to the group chief executive of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), asking him if there was any truth to reports that his corporation had banned four top political commentators.
The deputy general secretary, Bheki Ntshalintshali, asks in the letter — released on Wednesday — whether it is true that Aubrey Matshiqi, William Gumede, Karima Brown and Vukani Mde have been banned and that SABC editor Snuki Zikalala has told his staff that opinion pieces by the four should not be accepted for use in the public broadcaster’s news and current affairs programmes.
Brown is the political editor of Business Day newspaper. The paper’s editor, Peter Bruce, was quoted as saying that the exclusion was “absurd”.
“The editorial credibility of the SABC is in such free fall it may be a good thing we are not involved in any of their programming,” he said in Wednesday’s edition of Business Day.
This comes after the broadcaster decided not to air a documentary about the life of South African President Thabo Mbeki.
Ntshalintshali asked the SABC: “Would you please confirm or deny the truth of this allegation? If it is true, it will reinforce Cosatu’s previously expressed concern over media reports of remarks allegedly made at an African National Congress media briefing by ‘a senior SABC personality’ about the need to ‘isolate and neutralise’ the Cosatu general secretary [Zwelinzima Vavi].”
“We are still awaiting your reply to our letter demanding that the SABC disassociate itself from these comments attributed to the SABC official, and that if any person from the SABC did make those comments that she or he resign his or her position.
“Cosatu believes passionately in the need for a truly independent public broadcaster. The SABC must never be allowed to play a partisan role and form part of factions in our movement. If there is any truth in either of these serious allegations, it will mean that the corporation is departing from these principles, and undermining our democracy.” – I-Net Bridge