Today, Communications Minister Roy Padayachie will be holding talks on the proposed Public Service Broadcasting Bill. This Bill, as it is proposed, does not even warrant discussion. It should be redrawn entirely.

In its current form, the Bill would taint the independence of the SABC, making the public broadcaster a state-run broadcaster as it was under apartheid. We cannot allow the public broadcaster to become a mouthpiece of the governing party.

I shall be writing to the Minister to request that he scrap the proposed Bill entirely and focus instead on building a well-functioning and independent SABC.

The ongoing investigation by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) into fraud and misuse of public funds at the SABC, amounting to R1.4 billion, is indicative of a crisis of mismanagement and inadequate financial systems at the SABC. The situation is made worse by the SABC’s request for extra funding, this despite being unable to meet the performance targets required in its loan from the National Treasury. These major problems will not be resolved by legislation that allows for political meddling.

The Bill was proposed in January 2010 by former Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda. It seeks to confer wide-ranging powers on the Minister over the affairs of the SABC, making it vulnerable to political interference. It also proposes a levy of 1% personal income tax on South Africans to fund the SABC, a tax we do not believe is feasible or even constitutional, as the National Treasury was not consulted on this.

Rather than entertaining legislation proposed by the previous Minister, Minister Padayachie should focus on capacitating management structures, ensuring a culture of accountability, and rooting out the organisational rot that set in at the Public Broadcaster under the previous administrations.