BREAKING. Cosatu slams the SABC: ''Dr Ben Ngubane and Solly Mokoetle have persistently undermined the SABC board.''

''Dr Ben Ngubane, SABC chairperson and Solly Mokoetle, the SABC's group CEO, have persistently underminded the SABC board and ignored and overturned its decisions,'' says Cosatu, South Africa's biggest trade union federation in a just released, strongly-worded statement, saying that ''the state of affairs at the SABC has moved from bad to worse.

''Since May 2010 board meetings have been constantly cancelled leading to a situation where SABC board members have declared a vote of no confidence in the chairperson. After eight months in office the SABC board has not been able to draft a critical turn-around strategy for the corporation. The lack of board meetings have meant none of the policy issues addressed to the SABC by the independent production sector have been addressed.''

''Without a functioning SABC board, the public will continue to see the unabated strategy of imported shows on their screens, the independent production sector will continue to shrink alongside the SABC's income, the morale of staff at the SABC will continue to drop, and we will see the return of the SABC being used for political purposes, as already reflected in the blatantly biased coverage of the public service strike, and the way it reports the issues around the SABC board itself,'' says Cosatu.