The new February issue of the South African investigative magazine Noseweek has a must-read cover story headlined "The movie you need to see - but SABC dares not screen it".
The Noseweek article details the South African public broadcaster's refusal to broadcast a documentary film, Project Spear, the SABC commissioned itself, but which is critical of the ANC government.
Project Spear, produced by the respected TV reporter and filmmaker and former SABC face, Sylvia Vollenhoven, is a feature length documentary detailing an aleged ex-MI6 spy who presented the South African government with a plan - dubbed Project Spear - to recover billions of rands misappropriated by apartheid-era bankers, officials and politicians from state coffers.
According to Project Spear, the ANC government allegedly refused to take any action despite being given a strategic plan to recover the stolen billions.
According to the Noseweek article, Project Spear was produced for a new documentary strand Truth Be Told on SABC2.
According to Sylvia Vollenhoven, in April 2012 the SABC okayed the script.
Sylvia Vollenhoven tells Noseweek in the article that by September 2012, after the broadcaster was couriered a final edit of Project Spear, that Thando Shozi, the acting head of factual commissioning at the SABC, in an email told her that the film was "too sophisticated for an SABC2 audience".
In the email to Sylvia Vollenhoven, Thando Shozi allegedly also writes to her and says among other things, that: "The government is not going to take kindly to being asked, why are we walking away from recovery so much money?"
In the must-read Noseweek article in which Sylvia Vollenhoven goes into detail about the whole process, how it happened from her side, and gives her thoughts on how the SABC has changed, she tells how the Project Spear documentary which the SABC initially wanted, got sidelined.
She now says the SABC "has a responsibility to show this to the people". She's apparently also looking at trying to buy back the rights to the documentary and possibly taking it to other TV platforms such as e.tv or DStv.
I've asked the SABC if the public broadcaster has any comment, statement, or explanation from the public broadcaster's side on the Noseweek cover story. If there is a response from the SABC, I will bring it.
