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The South African Communist Party (SACP) held a picket at the SABC in Polokwane today as part of the Party’s wider campaign to bring to an end the administrative and governance decay that is destroying the public broadcaster. The picket was also held in support of the continuing struggle by three SABC journalists, Busisiwe Ntuli, Lukhanyo Calata and Vuyo Mvoko. The three journalists will respectively be at the High and Labour Court tomorrow respectively in Gauteng challenging their unlawful dismissals. The picket was used to welcome, in active non-racial solidarity, yesterday’s Johannesburg Labour Court judgment reinstating four other SABC journalists, Foeta Krige, Suna Venter, Jacques Steenkamp and Krivani Pillay. 

As the SACP we condemn in strongest terms possible, the fruitless and wasteful expenditure, including frivolous court cases and appeals uncritically pushed by the despotic regime that has established its control, at the SABC.

All the seven journalists were unfairly dismissed by the SABC regime enforcing its unconstitutional and therefore unlawful editorial edict it decreed on 26 May 2016 to impose censorship on violent protest actions in news reporting. In an application brought about by Krige, Venter, Pillay and Steenkamp, the Labour Court on Tuesday 26 July 2016 thus correctly found that their dismissals were “unlawful and void ab initio” (i.e. from the beginning). It ruled that the journalists “are entitled to return to work at the SABC and to continue with their respective duties and responsibilities in accordance with their job descriptions”.

The court judgement gives an ultimatum of five days to Seboleto Ditlhakaynane, the SABC General Manager for Radio News and Current Affairs and Mololo Simon Tebele, the SABC Acting Group Executive of News and Current Affairs, to file affidavits showing cause why they should not personally be held liable for all or part of the costs of the proceedings.

Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the unlawfully appointed and illegally serving SABC COO, the personality cult behind the operating administrative and governance decay at the SABC, must be held responsible for pushing Ditlhakanyane and Tebele in the situation they find themselves. Unfortunately Motsoeneng enjoys complicity from the SABC board. The board is thus reciprocally paralysed. It is unable to ensure good governance, including removing him from illegally serving as the SABC COO and preventing him from adopting unlawful actions.  

The SACP reiterates its call that Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who was appointed SABC COO unfairly and unlawfully without due processes, must be removed from the position and the SABC board must be held accountable or otherwise dissolved for its complicity in allowing the administrative and governance decay that is destroying the SABC, our public broadcaster.

Our campaign to save the SABC from the decay, including frivolous court challenges by the despotic regime that has established its control over our public broadcaster resulting in wasteful and fruitless expenditure, is continuing. We will deepen the struggle as part of our campaign to achieve transformation of the media.

Issued by the SACP