Shocking Broadcasting Amendment Bill from Faith Muthambi an 'illegal take-over of the SABC' as minister plans to turn SABC from a public to state broadcaster.

A Broadcasting Amendment Bill secretly being pushed through parliament by the ruling ANC government has been created to turn the SABC back into the Apartheid era state broadcaster it was before 1994.

The shocking Broadcasting Amendment Bill will change the Broadcasting Act, giving absolute control to South Africa's minister of communications to hire and fire SABC board members and the chairperson and will reduce the number of SABC board members.

The change will make the South African Broadcasting Corporation even more insulated and unaccountable to parliament or to the people of South Africa and instead only accountable and controlled by the South African president through proxy of the communication minister.

The shocking plan to hijack the SABC and to turn it into a state broadcaster comes from the controversial minister of communications, Faith Muthambi who has already overreached by directly intervening and firing SABC board members and now wants to place the SABC back under total state control which it was during Apartheid when it was a blatant National Party mouthpiece.

If approved and signed into law, the Broadcasting Amendment Bill will give the minister of communications in South Africa, in this case the highly unpopular Faith Muthambi, sole and total control over who to appoint, and when to fire, SABC board members.

It is exactly what she has been doing this year using the thinly-veiled disguise  and excuse of decimating the board saying she's doing so under the Companies Act because the SABC is a "state-owned entity".

The unstable SABC has been lurching from crisis to crisis with acrimonious in-fighting and instability on SABC board level as well as within its top-executive ranks, with the SABC and the government struggling to fill top-executive positions, SABC board member positions still vacant for months, as well as the position of the SABC chairperson.

Instead of a democratic process, Faith Muthambi wants to unilaterally take over the process since it's become too difficult to constantly replenish empty SABC board and SABC executive positions when people quit, are fired and leave in shame when they're exposed as having lied about qualifications like the disgraced former SABC chairperson Ellen Tshabalala.

The Broadcasting Amendment Bill,if passed will drastically reduce the SABC board members from 12 to just 9.

The Broadcasting Amendment Bill also seeks to reduce the quorum for voting on decisions from 9 to 7.

The president of the country, through the minister of communications will now appoint the few SABC board members that there will be instead of parliament.

The Broadcasting Amendment Bill also seeks to give the president and minister of communications the right to appoint an "interim SABC board" at will.

The Bill also specifies a new easier and much more unaccountable way for the re-appointment, firing and resignation of SABC board members.

Oversight of the SABC as a public broadcaster is reduced and taken away and the SABC is turned into a state broadcaster under control of the ruling president and that person's serving minister of communications.

The public pressure group for public broadcasting, the SOS Coalition says it will go to the Constitutional Court to challenge the shocking Broadcasting Amendment Bill.

"We are appalled that the minister of communications would seek, so brazenly, to transform our national public broadcaster into a state broadcaster beholden to the government of the day," says Sekoetlane Phamodi, SOS Coalition spokesperson told TVwithThinus.

"The SOS Coalition will take all necessary and available steps to oppose and challenge this move by the minister. The SABC belongs to the people of this country and, accordingly, it's board must be appointed by their public representatives in parliament in an open and public process."

Kate Skinner, independent broadcasting expert and Wits lecturer told TVwithThinus that "these amendments remove parliament and the public from the appointment process".

"This takes us full circle back to Apartheid. Here the public had no role in SABC appointments - the Broadcasting Act of 1976 stipulated that the president alone should appoint SABC board members."

"This is a betrayal of the ABC's post-apartheid vision for public - not state - broadcasting," says Kate Skinner.

"There is no room for this Broadcasting Amendment Bill in our democracy. It must be removed".

In a statement the Democratic Alliance (DA) political party says the Broadcasting Amendment Bill "is quite simply bad news for South Africa's democracy".

"It will see the last vestige of independence removed from the SABC, paving the way for it to become a ANC government propaganda tool under the control of Faith Muthambi."

"Along with the SABC Memorandum of Incorporation secretly signed by Faith Muthambi in September 2014 which gives the minister of communications the right to usurp the SABC board's powers reducing it to a mere rubber stamp, the Broadcasting Amendment Bill will give the ANC complete control over the SABC," says the DA.

"For South Africa's hard-won democracy to thrive, it is imperative that the country has a public broadcaster that is independent of government, free from political interference and presents news that is an accurate representation of conditions in South Africa."

"Any machinations to remove the independence of the SABC must be viewed as not only undemocratic, but also possibly, unconstitutional."

"The DA will vehemently oppose this Broadcasting Amendment Bill for the benefit of all South Africans who have a right to impartial news, not ANC good news stories and propaganda".

The South African Communist Party (SACP) is also vehemently opposed to the Broadcasting Amendment Bill and minister Faith Muthambi's shocking plan.

The SACP says the Broadcasting Amendment Bill will turn the SABC from a public broadcasting into a "corporate broadcaster". "The Bill will effectively make the SABC a company. All future minister of communications will have direct control over the SABC, instead of parliament".

The Inkata Freedom Party (IFP) is also strongly opposed to the Broadcasting Amendment Bill and shocked by the proposed plan to turn the SABC into a state broadcaster, calling the Broadcasting Amendment Bill "disturbing" and "an illegal take-over of the SABC".

The IFP is calling for South Africans to boycott the SABC and to immediately stop paying their SABC TV licences.

"We must unite, across political divide to save our public broadcaster," says the IFP in a statement.

"As a start, the IFP is of the opinion that citizens should lead a campaign of civil disobedience by not paying their TV licenses. If all else fails, the courts must be approached to stop this disastrous amendment bill from succeeding".

"The tabling of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill by the minister of communications will effectively turn the SABC into a state broadcaster," says the IFP.

"As things stand, the National Assembly, through the portfolio committee of communications, is part and parcel of shortlisting, interviewing and recommending candidates to serve on the SABC board."

"While the IFP has in the past lamented the fact that the SABC board appointment process is flawed - because the ANC uses its majority in Parliament to push though candidates of their choice - the current process does allow for opposition parties to negotiate and fight for the most qualified, independent candidates to be considered for these posts."

"However, if the broadcasting Amendment Bill is passed, the National Assembly will no longer be involved in appointing members to the SABC board. This will become the sole prerogative of the minister of communications."

The Economic Freedom Front (EFF) party slammed the Broadcasting Amendment Bill as "an Apartheid move".

The EFF calls the proposed change of the SABC from a public broadcaster to a state broadcaster under the control of the minister of communications "an anti-democratic, totalitarian move".

"This proposal demonstrates an uncontrollable desire by the ANC government to totalitarianism and be accountable to no one. The significant thing of any totalitarian government is total control of public broadcasting services coupled with suppression of all media freedom".

"Without the public broadcaster‚ held accountable by both parliament and cabinet‚ society only depends on corporate private broadcasters to hold politicians accountable," says the EFF.

"This Broadcasting Amendment Bill is therefore an Apartheid move‚ a fascist totalitarianism seeking to monopolise the running of the people's broadcasting services to government."

"Without parliament‚ people like the SABC's chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng‚ who are unqualified to hold positions they occupy‚ will be increased in the leadership of the SABC solely because they want to kill independent journalism within the pubic broadcaster and stop all criticism on the government of the day," says the EFF.

Disciplinary hearing of the SABC's COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng is suddenly back on from today after it was abruptly cancelled on Thursday.

The abruptly "adjourned" disciplinary hearing of the SABC against its highly controversial and famously matricless chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng is suddenly continuing today.

Hlaudi Motsoeneng's disciplinary hearing was supposed to start at the end of October, was then postponed to 1 December, was again postponed and only started on 2 December and lasted all of two days after it was abruptly cancelled.

During this period labour lawyer Sandile July was also fired as the lead prosecutor in the disciplinary hearing and replaced by the SABC with Mponyana Ledwaba as the SABC's pro-forma prosecutor.

On Sunday Hlaudi Motsoeneng's legal representation was told the disciplinary hearing is suddenly back on again and will be happening from Monday.

It comes after advocate William Mokhari on Thursday said the disciplinary hearing of Hlaudi Motsoeneng serves no purpose and would only be "academic" due to multiple ongoing court cases against Hlaudi Motsoeneng, and that the disciplinary hearing has therefore been cancelled.

The Public Protector in February 2014 in a scathing report entitled When Governance and Ethics Fail, implicated Hlaudi Motsoeneng in maladministration and abuse of power at the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

The Public Protector found that Hlaudi Motsoeneng lied about having matric and made up symbols for a certificate he knew he couldn't produce, said that he "should never have been appointed at the SABC".

Hlaudi Motsoeneng was implicated as having been involved in getting rid of everyone who testified against him in an earlier disciplinary hearing at the SABC, and his salary increased from R1.5 million to R2.4 million at the SABC in one year.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) political party said it will now proceed with contempt proceedings against the SABC.

"It is utterly preposterous to suggest, as the SABC now does, that two separate judgments, both requiring serious and immediate sanction of Hlaudi Motsoeneng, cancel one another out, having the result that he should return to work as COO."

"The suggestion is so absurd and baseless in law that it confirms that the SABC is hell-bent on ensuring that this disciplinary process is reduced to a sham," says the DA.

The SABC issued a terse statement on Friday, coming across as not knowing what to say.

"The SABC wishes to clear up any confusion following the adjournment yesterday [Thursday] of the disciplinary hearing against COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng," said SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago.

"Pending the finalisation of the appeal process Hlaudi Motsoeneng is still the organisation's COO".

On Sunday Hlaudi Motsoeneng's lawyer, Zola Majavu, was told that Hlaudi Motsoeneng's disciplinary hearing is suddenly back on, following after the threat of contempt of court proceedings.

"The chairperson of the disciplinary committee was wrong," said Zola Majavu. "The SABC told us they are going ahead with the disciplinary hearing. There is no reason for the Democratic Alliance to threaten us with court".

The public pressure group for public broadcasting, the SOS Coalition, criticised the SABC for dragging out the disciplinary hearing process.

"The SABC board has treated the Public Protector with absolute contempt on this matter," Sekoetlane Phamodi, SOS Coalition spokesperson told eNCA (DStv 403) on Monday morning.

Missed digital terrestrial television (DTT) deadline of 17 June 'is not a train smash' says head of DTT programme, Solly Mokoetle.

South Africa which missed the internationally agreed to deadline of 17 June 2015 to complete the switch from analogue to digital TV transmission "is not a train smash", says Solly Mokoetle, the head of the country's DTT programme.

South Africa is years behind schedule for digital TV and missed the agreed to deadline of 17 June of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to complete the commercial switch from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) - a process which takes around 5 years.

South Africa no longer has the protection of the ITU when it comes to things like signal interference. The multiple expensive ongoing DTT delays have hampered South Africa's release of much needed spectrum and continue to negatively impact growth and development in South Africa's TV broadcasting and broadband industries.

Despite several false starts and constantly moved announced dates by the department of communications over the past decade, South Africa has not even started the commercial switch-on period, which will take a few years to get to the stage where analogue signals in the dual illumination period can finally be switched off.

TV households will have to buy an expensive set-top box (STB), not yet available, for around R700 to R800, and in several instances also a new TV antenna at an additional cost, to get the digital transmission of existing TV channels.

Around 5 million poorest TV households will get a free STB government hand-out box. Another 3 million South African TV households who will not qualify, will have to buy a STB.

"Digital migration is not a single day event," said Solly Mokoetle. He was a panelist at Monday morning's The New Age breakfast briefing held in Sandton.

"Digital migration is a process," said Solly Mokoetle, admitting that "we've had some stumbling blocks in South Africa for a while, around the approval of the [DTT] policy."

"In fact, in South Africa we already have dual illumination. Which means if you have a STB out there that can receive the digital signal, then definitely you will be digital."

"And I'm saying it is not a train smash," said Solly Mokoetle.

"On 17 June when the ITU deadline reached there were 5 countries in Africa which met the deadline. Most countries have taken long. The United Kingdom took about 13 years to do DTT. We have taken 8 years of which we are still going through the obstacle of policy."

"We are looking at a period of about 18 to 24 months to be able to complete the entire digital migration and to release the digital dividend. But before that we will have reached the stage of analogue switch-off and we will be advising minister of communications Faith Muthambi to declare that period very, very soon," said Solly Mokoetle.


Millions more poor homes than 5 million households
Solly Mokoetle said the STB will no longer come with internet services on the decoder. "Not at this point. The box that we have is a simple box that enables you to watch your television as you were watching before but with better quality and more channels. It is about that. It is not more bells and whistles."

"We are talking here about the subsides box. There will be boxes in retail that are issued out by the broadcasters themselves that may have other features."

Sekoetlane Phamodi, coordinator of the SOS Coalition, which is a civil society, non-profit pressure group advocating for public broadcasting, said millions more South African TV households - many more than the 5 million - are poor according to the 2011 census and need to be given subsidised STBs.

"They also do desperately need to be given these boxes for free as well, given what the census figures tell us about the economic conditions of the people of our country".

"It's quite true," admitted Pumla Radebe, the chairperson of the state-owned Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA).

"When government took the decision, the number was set at 5 million households. And the recent census that we have, has indicated that the figure of indigent households have grown. We currently have a figure of 8.2 million households," said Pumla Radebe.

Growing concerns about the process followed and the validity of the appointment process of the new SABC CEO Frans Matlala.

Concerns are growing around the process followed and the validity of the appointment of Frans Matlala who the South African Broadcasting Corporation yesterday announced as its new CEO.

The rudderless SABC, which is also limping along with a gutted SABC board, hasn't had a CEO for a year and five months since Lulama Mokhobo abruptly quit in February 2014 without explanation and left with a golden handshake just a few months into her 5 year contract

At its Auckland Park headquarters the SABC yesterday announced that Frans Matlala, a former banking executive who've been an advisory consultant for the SABC for a year, has been appointed as the new SABC CEO.

Frans Matlala was already identified in October 2014 as the frontrunner to become the new SABC CEO as fears grew that Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the controversial and famously matricless chief operating officer (COO) would be appointed as CEO.

SABC executives Tian Olivier and Anton Heunis who had both served as acting SABC CEO in the past were the other two contenders for the position. In April Anton Heunis suddenly left the SABC as acting CEO.

Frans Matlala said he hopes to serve as SABC CEO for the entire length of his contract. Since 2009 several SABC CEO's either left or were fired long before the end of their tenure.

The non-profit media monitoring organisation Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) slammed the lack of transparency in the SABC CEO appointment process.

"It is very difficult to comment on a process where there has been so little transparency," William Bird, MMA director tells TV with Thinus.

"We would like to know: When was the SABC CEO position advertised? Who were the top three candidates, when did the interviews take place, who made the decision at SABC board level and when was person appointed?"

"We heard contradictory statements at the SABC press conference. We we told that Peter Matlala was appointed by the current reduced SABC board. Hlaudi Motsoeneng then said that actually the SABC CEO appointment had taken place under the older SABC board before the two members were removed, and that the delay was in the minister of communications agreeing to the appointment."

"It cannot be both," says William Bird.

"It seems that yet again instead of improving corporate governance we have another controversial SABC appointment that is likely to yield more challenges in the future."

The SOS Coalition, a public pressure group representing a vast number of the biggest industry stakeholders in South Africa's public broadcasting sphere, is also raising concern about the appointment process.

"We need to know when the recommendation was made and whether the SABC board that made this recommendation was, indeed quorate, or whether, yet again, it operated unlawfully to push for an appointment viewed as suitable by government," Sekoetlane Phamodi, SOS Coalition coordinator tells TV with Thinus.

"There remains the tender issue of the legality of the Memorandum of Incorporation," says Sekoetlane Phamodi.

"[It] is incompatable with the basic tenets of public broadcasting which require the institution to be demonstrably independent of government influence in how it allows the government of the day to cherry-pick the editor-in-chief of the SABC as well as the very people that direct the operations and finances of the SABC."

"This cannot be allowed to be the case lest the SABC is reverted back into a state broadcaster as we had under the erstwhile apartheid regime," says Sekoetlane Phamodi.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) political party also says there are questions around the appointment process of Frans Matlala.

"With only 6 members, the SABC board is three short of the quorum it requires to make legally binding decisions such as the appointment of a new CEO. The DA is looking into this," says Gavin Davis, DA MP and a member of parliament's portfolio committee on communications.

The Congress of the People (COPE) said it doesn't support Frans Matlala's appointment as SABC CEO.

"He is a close ally of Hlaudi Motsoeneng. We don't think that there will be any changes because Hlaudi Motsoeneng will still be in control. This man will only be a flower pot and Hlaudi Motsoeneng will still run the show," said COPE.

Leah Khumalo, new SABC board deputy chairperson, said that "we believe we had enough quorum to make the appointment. We are sure all legal requirements were satisfied".

Hlaudi Motsoeneng said at the Auckland Park press conference that "Frans Matlala was appointed even before the three SABC board members left the organisation. It is not a new matter. The only issue that was outstanding, it was the approval from the minister".

The minister of communications, Faith Muthambi, congratulated Frans Matlala who is a supporter of Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

"We wish Frans Matlala all the best as he undertakes the important task of ensuring that our public broadcaster delivers on its mandate of fulfilling the public's right to know, educate, and entertain as well as nation building."

"We are looking forward to working with him, the SABC board and the entire leadership of the SABC in realising their obligation to serve the whole population."

The 'stuck' SABC is politically hamstrung, the ruling party effectively owns it; SABC also beholden to commercial forces, says SOS Coalition.

The beleaguered SABC remains politically hamstrung is also beholden to commercial forces - both unduly influencing the SABC, says Sekoetlane Phamodi, coordinator of the public pressure group, the Support Public Broadcasting or SOS Coalition.

Sekoetlane Phamodi was speaking at a public forum meeting of the Open Society Institute of South Africa which held a post elections forum.

"The SABC is politically hamstrung. The ruling party essentially and effectively owns it. That means in practice that the SABC is not enabled to be as independent as it should be. The SABC can't ask the probing questions, and give a critical analysis of what the major issues in our society are," says Sekoetlane Phamodi.

"One case in point is when it comes to the financing of the SABC, we're told the story 'the fiscus is too stretched, where will the money come from?' The truth of the matter is, the SABC gets most of its money from commercial advertisers - 80 percent".

"That means that the SABC is also beholden to these commercial forces to sell to particular customers; to frame messages in a particular way in order to keep them attracting and retaining those advertisers. So the SABC is stuck," says Sekoetlane Phamodi.