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The SABC has lurched from crisis to crisis over the last few years and has failed in its duty to ensure that time allocated to party political broadcasts was equitable.
This is part of the submissions that the Democratic Alliance’s shadow minister of communications, Phumzile van Damme, will be making to the SABC Inquiry on Wednesday.
The inquiry, chaired by the Press Council’s executive director Joe Thloloe, is investigating whether there was any external political and commercial influence affecting the SABC’s news agenda during the period of 2012 – 2018.
On Monday, the Economic Freedom Fighters spokesperson Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi told the commission that the party had been a direct victim of editorial interference and marginalisation at the SABC.
Read: ‘EFF was marginalised by SABC,’ Ndlozi tells inquiry
In Van Damme’s submission, she says that the DA also bore the brunt of the SABC management deciding which events get live coverage
“In 2015 the DA had to approach the courts to force the SABC to give live broadcast of our federal congress, because the chief operating officer [Hlaudi Motsoeneng] didn’t deem this as being important enough. This is a clear illustration of an abuse of power at the public broadcaster, which should be addressed and prohibited in the new editorial policy,” says Van Damme.
She also questions the broadcaster’s advertising policy, saying that before the 2016 local government elections, the DA had to go to court because the SABC refused to air a DA advertisement.
This set back the party’s campaign advertising on this platform by at least five days.
DA's submission to SABC inquiry by CityPress on Scribd
“Over the last few years, we have seen the SABC’s programming interrupted for speeches by various leaders of the ANC; ANC study groups given live coverage; and opposition parties denied live coverage despite their events fitting the requirement of an event of national importance,” says Van Damme in her submission.
“Sound editorial policies presents a unique opportunity to protect itself from these crises through the adoption of policies that are truly independent and committed to the values of journalistic independence and creativity, freedom of speech, advance the public interest,” Van Damme says.
“Of key importance in this regard is the way in which the public broadcaster chooses to cover political parties during election periods.”
It is the DA’s contention that due to political interference at the SABC, the broadcaster had in the past failed in its duty to ensure that time allocated to party political broadcasts were equitable.
“Proper editorial policies and checks and balances have to be put in place in order to prevent this from happening again in the future,” she says.
The commission hopes to have a draft report ready by early August on the preliminary findings.
Besides the commission looking into political interference, another inquiry is investigating claims of sexual harassment at the broadcaster.
A broad spectrum of issues and complaints – ranging from unwelcome gestures to rumours of sex for jobs solicitations – is expected to be covered.
