As the SABC and Newzroom Afrika aim to capture new markets by launching news channels in indigenous languages, the legality of the public broadcaster’s move is being questioned as it has no appointed board.
The announcement of the SABC channel raised eyebrows because the corporation has no accounting authority as the board’s term ended in October and a new board is yet to be appointed.
But the broadcaster defended its decision, saying the channel was not new and did not require the approval of a board.
Industry insiders said it was irregular for the SABC management to go ahead with the launch without getting the nod from the incoming board.
“You cannot have management deciding to launch a channel without the approval of a board. That is a hugely strategic decision,” said one source.
“A board would have asked, ‘What is the budget, will it be sustainable, what resources are needed, what is the staffing?’
“Those are the one-on-one oversight questions, not whether we should have one,” said the source.
Former SABC board member Michael Markovitz, who heads the media leadership think-tank at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, said the way the internal approval process was supposed to work at the SABC was for management to present a proposed channel’s strategy and budget to the relevant board committee. The full board would then discuss the proposal and approve or reject it.
“However, announcing the launch of this new channel while there is currently no board in place appears irregular, on the face of it,” Markovitz said. “While I fully support the concept of an indigenous language SABC news channel, it should have gone through a proper board approval process.”
SABC spokesperson Mmoni Seapolelo said the channel was an existing platform that the organisation acquired in 2018 and was operational from 2019.
“This channel was licensed to broadcast on DTT (digital terrestrial television). Therefore the executive management team did not apply for a new channel, but a decision was taken to repurpose the existing channel.
“This decision is in line with the SABC’s governance framework and well within the powers of the executive committee.”
At the time the channel was acquired the SABC had a board in place and the required processes were followed, Seapolelo said.
The minister says we want a 24-hour indigenous news channel and the SABC goes ahead Hlaudi-style and launches a channel.
Questions about the new channel have been raised because of the timing of the announcement — it was made just weeks after communications & digital technologies minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the ANC national conference in December had decided on the need for it.
Addressing the ANC’s progressive business forum, Ntshavheni said the ANC wanted the SABC to run a 24-hour channel of news in indigenous languages so people could hear the news in their own language every day.
But, she added: “I don’t want to pre-empt the decisio ns of the new SABC board.”
“The minister says we want a 24-hour indigenous news channel and the SABC goes ahead Hlaudi-style and launches a channel. It’s bizarre because she said they don’t want to pre-empt the new board,” said a source close to the broadcaster, referring to the broadcaster’s former COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
While welcoming a 24-hour news channel that caters for different languages, public broadcasting lobby group the SOS Coalition has questioned what it called “a rush” to launch the channel, especially in light of the governance vacuum.
“It’s not clear how the concept came about. Is this a resolution that was taken by the previous board? And why not wait until there is a new board before it is implemented so there is someone to oversee if it is implemented accordingly?” said SOS co-ordinator Uyanda Siyotula.
The Sunday Times has established that when the SABC received approval from the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to set up the channel in 2018, it was meant to be dedicated to providing coverage of parliament via DTT and there has been no authorisation to change it to a 24-hour indigenous news channel.
An SABC source with knowledge of the project said no additional budget or resources had been allocated to the channel as news gathering would be done by existing journalists. Content and the language medium were not specified in the Icasa approval, so broadcasting current affairs shows did not raise any problems. Content was an editorial decision and did not require board approval, said the source.
Seapolelo confirmed that SABC News would use existing resources to produce news bulletins and current affairs in African languages.
She said the news service was a response to demand “from the millions of our viewers yearning for extensive news coverage and further telling of their stories in their own languages”.
According to sources, the haste to launch was also influenced by Newzroom Afrika’s plan to launch an indigenous news channel on MultiChoice at the end of February.
Ntshavheni’s spokesperson Tlangelani Manganyi did not respond to a request for comment.
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