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The SOS Coalition thanks the Minister of Communications, Ms. Dina Pule, for her comprehensive briefing to the media and all stakeholders this week. We welcome in particular her announcement as regards her commitment to launching the broadcasting policy review and the appointment of a review panel in this regard. The Coalition has long campaigned for this.
However, despite the Coalition’s strong support for this review, there are some important concerns that SOS would like to highlight. These include the fact that the Minister has announced that she will be re-tabling the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill, 2011, in the first quarter of 2012, after public consultations with government and stakeholders. The Bill was withdrawn in November 2011.
As discussed in an open letter to the Minister in 2011, the SOS Coalition believes that the Electronic Communications Act needs to be reviewed as part of the broadcasting policy review - and not as a separate process. One of the key aims of the review is to ensure alignment of policy, legislation and regulations in the broadcasting sector. This will not be possible if the review is not comprehensive and doesn’t cover all key policy, legislation and regulations. We thus need urgent clarity from the Minister about this amendment process and how it will relate to the broader policy review.
Also, in terms of the broadcasting policy review, the Coalition notes the Minister’s use of the term “state owned enterprise” when referring to the SABC. The Coalition believes that the SABC is not an ordinary state owned enterprise and should thus have special safeguards to its independence. It has an important constitutional role to play in terms of freedom of expression and access to information. We therefore believe that the broadcasting policy review should look at the potential transformation of the SABC into a constitutionally protected Chapter 9 institution.
The Coalition supports the Minister’s commitment to ensuring the filling of key executive posts at the SABC. However, the Coalition would like to reiterate a point made in one of its previous statements that the issue of the appointment of executives is problematic. The present Broadcasting Act, 1999, is silent on executive appointments. However, the SABC’s Articles of Association allow the Minister to play a key role in approving the appointments of the three executive members of the Board including the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. The Coalition reiterates that this is contrary to international good practice. To ensure the independence of the SABC from all vested interests be they government or commercial, the Board should take sole responsibility for these appointments without any input from the Ministry. This issue needs to be urgently resolved as part of the policy review.
Finally, the Coalition notes the concerns raised by its member organisation, Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) as regards the independence of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA). MMA notes that and while it is critical that ICASA’s efficiency and effectiveness is improved, it is not appropriate for the Minister to move ahead with her plan to implement performance contracts with ICASA Councillors. Performance contracts are obviously a positive development but to safeguard ICASA’s independence these contracts should be signed with Parliament rather than with the Department of Communications. MMA states the following:
While there can be little doubt that the regulator can function far more effectively and optimally, and while the current legislation gives the Minister the power to implement the suggestion (departmental performance contracts), we believe that it has the potential to have extremely negative consequences for the independence of the regulator…
Media Monitoring Africa argues that the Minister should delay this decision to implement the performance contracts until such time as the Broadcasting Policy Review has been completed.
The SOS Coalition represents a number of trade unions including COSATU, COSATU affiliates CWU and CWUSA, FEDUSA, BEMAWU and MWASA; independent film and TV production sector organisations including the South African Screen Federation (SASFED); and a host of NGOs and CBOs including the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-SA); as well as a number of academics and freedom of expression activists.
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