Parly OKs 'SABC board' Bill

2008-08-19 21:23

Cape Town - The controversial Broadcasting Amendment Bill was approved in the National Assembly on Tuesday amid promises by the opposition to petition President Thabo Mbeki on the matter.

The bill provides, among other things, for the Assembly to play a major role in removing SABC board members from office.

Dene Smuts of the Democratic Alliance said if the bill was truly to deal with bona fide cases where the removal of a board member for misconduct or incompetence was necessary, an amendment she had proposed would have been enough.

This brought the removal provision in line with appointment, which was drawn from the constitutional arrangements for Chapter Nine Institutions, because the public broadcaster enjoyed Section 16 media freedom and, like the commissions, had to be independent from government.

The intentions of the ruling party

"However, that removal provision now sits alongside a set of clauses that propose the dissolution of the entire board and the installation of a small hand-picked interim board without any transparent process," Smuts said.

"That is offensive, intimidatory, and destructive of the security of tenure without which this body cannot protect Section 16 editorial independence and the right of the public to be informed.

"It also puts on public display the intentions of the ruling portion of the ruling party.

"Obviously the thinking is that the Polokwane faction in parliament will decide and the new chairperson of that party will force the President to execute that decision.

"But that is the most primitive form of power politics. It cannot be the law because it is unconstitutional."

The legal concept of the separation of powers was another constitutional concept ignored by the bill, and it was especially on that concept that the DA would petition Mbeki not to sign it into law, Smuts said.

Suzanne Vos of the Inkatha Freedom Party said the bill would prove to be an enabling factor for direct political interference into the governance of the SABC and an assault on the board's independence.

'Outrageous' proposition

"The proposition that an entire board of the SABC can be removed, not by 'due enquiry', but merely after a 'finding' of a committee of the National Assembly is, quite simply, outrageous.

"It is a patently obvious intra party-political manoeuvre and in so doing this Honourable House is being used as a tool for the political machinations of the new post-Polokwane ruling clique of the ANC.

"We cannot and will not support bad law. This bill is bad law."

The Independent Democrats, African Christian Democratic Party, and Freedom Front Plus also opposed the bill.

However, the ANC's Eric Kholwane dismissed these arguments and that it meant "the end of the current SABC board".

Regarding the DA petitioning Mbeki, Kholwane said, "if that happened, we'll be ready to deal with whatever issues".

The bill was approved after a division, and now goes to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence.

- SAPA