Speech by Suzanne Vos MP on the Second Reading Debate: Broadcasting Amendment Bill, National Assembly, Cape Town, August 19 2008 

The Inkatha Freedom Party has made it clear that it will not support this Bill for many reasons including:

We believe this Bill will prove to be an enabling factor for direct political interference into the governance of the SABC and is an assault on the independence of the board of the public broadcaster; 

We question the constitutionality of the attempt to fudge the separation of powers between the executive and our legislature by making the "appointing body" of the SABC board "the President in consultation with the Speaker of the National Assembly";

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.

Not once since 1994 has this ever been on the agenda of the Portfolio Committee on Communications but suddenly, after Polokwane, the issue has become one of extreme urgency. 

It is a patently obvious intra party-political manoeuvre and in so doing this Hon. House is being used as a tool for the political machinations of the new post-Polokwane ruling clique of the ANC.  The IFP will vote against this Bill and is considering petitioning the President of the Republic not to sign this Bill into law once it is passed by Parliament.

We cannot and will not support bad law.  This Bill is bad law.