‘Integrity officer’ for SABC?
Our constitution will trigger the ANC to do the right thing for Lotus
LOTUS FM is one of the main cultural arteries which runs through the Indian community. When Dr Monty Naicker, president of the South African Indian Congress, signed the Freedom Charter on behalf of the Indian community at Kliptown in 1965, he did so with the comforting thought that “all people shall have equal right to use their own languages and to develop their own folk culture and customs”, and that “all national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride”.
These promises were subsequently entrenched as rights in our onstitution. This is the primary reason why the ruling ANC will be triggered into action should the management of the SABC not reconsider its decree to implement the 90/10 decision to increase local content on Lotus FM. Moreover, the SABC board, which is the custodian of policy, is yet to pronounce on the 90/10 decision.
A second more compelling reason is that the contribution of the Indian community to the liberation struggle will always occupy a special place in the institutional memory of our country. Nelson Mandela’s best friend was Ismail Meer.
Ismail was Madiba’s studymate over the years until he graduated as a lawyer.
In 1985 when the United Democratic Front leaders were granted bail in the Pietermaritzburg Treason Trial, it was the Indian business community which raised the cash to pay the bail of UDF leaders Archie Gumede, Paul David, Essop Jassat and others.
When Jacob Zuma and Judson Khuzwayo were released from Robben Island in 1974 and were being detained at the Durban Central Police Station awaiting deportation to the homelands, it was political activist Phyllis Naidoo who employed them in her law office in Durban so that they could get a section 10 exemption under the Urban Areas Act to remain in the city centre.
Although there is a fair amount of noise in politics at the moment, the national question (the formation of a South African nation to include Africans, coloureds, Indians and whites) is still the primary focus of the ANC.
This quick anecdotal walk through our struggle history explains why the ANC will move to scrap the 90/10 decree.
The ANC understands and appreciates the importance of language and culture in the context of South Africa’s developing democracy.
It goes without saying that the future of Lotus FM is dependent on the stability of the SABC.
The SABC board is currently facing dissolution by Parliament in terms of the Broadcasting Act. When that happens, one hopes that the interim board, which Parliament will recommend to the president, will be sufficiently strong to rescind the 90/10 decree and begin a consultative process with the stakeholders of Lotus FM, to explore ways of increasing local content and ensuring that any changes will be introduced in a structured manner over a period of time.
The primary challenge at the SABC is the breakdown of governance, which opens up a large space for conduct which borders on criminality.
When someone can appropriate a substantial amount of taxpayers’ money from the broadcaster with impunity and without proper assessment and procedures being followed, one is no longer dealing with adequate governance.
Good governance at the SABC must be underpinned by the principle to act in the public interest at all times. This requires a strong commitment to integrity, ethical values, the rule of law, transparency and comprehensive stakeholder engagement.
Ethics
A starting point in fixing the SABC would be to choose non-executive board members whose ethics and integrity are beyond reproach, and who would be strong enough to hold the SABC executives to account and not allow them to usurp the authority of the board.
Board members and SABC executives should submit to lifestyle audits from time to time. This is a sure way of restoring public confidence in the organisation and eliminating any perception that SABC leaders have conflated their material interest with their fiduciary responsibilities.
Section 217 of the constitution requires a procurement system to be fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective.
The SABC should install an oversight mechanism to ensure that its strong compliance and control mechanisms in the business transacting environment are adhered to in line with the constitution.
High ethical values and standards should form the basis of all policies, procedures and actions, as well as the personal behaviour of the board members and staff at the SABC.
Functioning within the rule of law should enjoin the SABC to take into consideration the Bill of Rights and constitution, the legislative framework and the ethical standards contained in our law and expounded by our courts from time to time.
To strengthen the organisation’s ethical foundation, we should consider appointing an ‘integrity commissioner’ at the SABC on the same lines as the offices established in the Gauteng Provincial Government and Johannesburg City Council.
These structural adjustments would go a long way to stabilising the SABC and ensuring it is governable.
The SABC, with its scarce skills, serves a critical function in building our nation and state.
The organisation is unique in that it permeates practically every facet of our lives – political, social, economic, sport, cultural and religious. The SABC is wholly owned by the state and is financed by advertising revenue, licence fees and the taxpayer.
Hence, the way we manage our public funds in the SABC offers a dipstick to the investment community, both domestic and international, to predict how we would manage private investments, South Africa’s economic trajectory and the country’s eventual status as either a weak, failing or strong state.
We can pride ourselves that in 20 years, South Africa has succeeded in laying down a strong legislative and ethical framework of accountability and good governance that compares favourably with countries that have been in existence since the evolution of states more than 350 years ago. With the King IV Report due to be released next month, our accountability framework is continually evolving.
Our constitutional democracy entrenches the freedoms for which many have sacrificed. With so much at stake, we should not allow a decree of the SABC management to unlawfully go against our strong accountability framework to derail Lotus FM and, by implication, the national question.