SACP calls for overhaul of SABC board

6 July 2016

Johannesburg - The SACP has called for a complete overhaul of the SABC board.

"I think that its an issue that we will further engage. In fact our view is that the board must be recused.

"It has failed on its public mandate and the president and parliament must look into this institution, particularly the failure of the board to hold management to account," SACP's second deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila told journalists on Wednesday.

Mapaila said the SABC board had become complacent and had failed to hold its senior management to account.

"The capacity of the board to hold management to account on its decision, even on driving the transformation agenda... is very much complacent. It's less about Hlaudi Motsoeneng [SABC Chief Operating Officer] as an individual, but its much more about the collective of the board that is complicit in this rot that is taking place," he said.

The SABC and Motsoeneng have recently come under fire for choosing not to televise violent protests.

On Friday morning, journalists from several media outlets picketed outside the SABC’s offices in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town in support of three journalists who were served with suspension letters last week, as well as against Motsoeneng's censorship of the news.

The three journalists had disagreed with an instruction during a diary conference not to cover a Right2Know protest against censorship at the public broadcaster earlier that week.

This followed the charging of three other SABC employees last Thursday for "liaising with the media" without authorisation from their bosses.

SABC journalist Lukhanyo Calata was also charged on Monday after he joined the Cape Town protest.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.