The General is on the march

November 6th, 2009

Communication Minister Siphiwe Nyanda’s response in Business Day to my criticism of the new Public Service Broadcasting Bill is a disappointment, to say the very least. He resorts to the tired old cliches of declaring those who criticise his Bill to be resistant to change and unpatriotic.

Interestingly, he does not deal much with the substance of the criticism. He says this Bill is just a discussion document, even though nowhere on the document does it say this is a draft Bill - and he has made it clear he wants to slam this through parliament quickly. He left only a few weeks between people responding to his discussion document and the publication of this major Bill, which can only mean that his officials barely bothered to read the input as they had the Bill written and prepared to go.

On the major charge - that the Bill gives him huge powers to interfere in the SABC and Icasa, and undermines the role and independence of these organisations - he offers us is his word that he does not want to interfere and respects their independence. By why would he be giving himself powers that he does not want to use? The point of a law is to make the rules so that we don’t have to rely on promises and assurances.

The General says we are unpatriotic not to see the fine intentions of the Bill. All I can say is that we would have to be fools to take the intentions as stated at face value, when the Bill appears to do things entirely at odds with those stated intentions.

The General also ridicules those who suggest the Bill might undermine the independence of community radio stations by enforcing a partnership with local municipalities. His reason? If the government wanted to impose on community stations, it could do so in other ways, because it gives them financial support, he says.

This is hardly convincing, General Minister (or is it Minister General?). Please engage with the substance of the Bill and tell us what we are to understand the relevant paragraph of the Bill. Section 25 (quoted word-for-word, I promise) tells us that community stations “shall be partnership with municipalities…” and this partnership shall include “availability of information about development to by local municipalities”.

Legal commentator Pierre de Vos has pointed out that the authors of the Bill have not read the constitution. Because it deals with tax issues, it is a money bill, and such a bill can only be introduced by the Treasury and must deal only with money issues. Also, it probably contravenes the constitutional protection for the independent broadcasting regulator.

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Media regulation