ANCYL ’ s hot air misplaced

THE rant by the ANC Youth League against public protector Thuli Madonsela is dangerous and cannot go unchallenged. The silence from its governing mother body, the ANC, is even more worrying.

Madonsela came under fire last week after she released her office ’ s findings following its probe into the mess that is the SABC – supposedly a public broadcaster.

Her report stated that the chief operating officer at the national broadcaster, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, had secured employment at the institution through fraudulent means. He is said to have misrepresented his matric marks on information he gave his employers.

Once in the employ of the SABC and particularly after securing his lofty posting, the public protector found Motsoeneng to have almost doubled his salary to about R2,4million a year. Not bad for someone without a matric.

The ANCYL is entitled to its opinion regarding the matter but it hardly backed its attack on Madonsela with facts to dispute her findings. It declared only that her report was laden with lies.

Maybe the youth league couldn ’ t resist the opportunity to gain the media space guaranteed to almost anyone making any pronouncement on the SABC saga. It was, after all, the biggest story of the week.

We are in the midst of election season and the SABC, being the state broadcaster, is naturally fair game for those fighting to woo voters.

The trouble is the kind of noises made by the ANCYL are not helpful at all if we are to build public confidence in state institutions such as the public protector, other Chapter 9 bodies and the judiciary.

The youth league ’ s proximity to power places a relatively heavier burden of responsibility on its shoulders.

We understand that it could be envious, sitting on the sidelines, while its former leaders are gobbling copious amounts of media coverage as they mount a challenge for votes in the May 7 elections.

But nothing could justify the baseless attack, premised on nothing more than tagging the public protector ’ s findings as lies. “The report is littered with many lies ” is all that ANCYL national convenor Mzwandile Masina could say to justify the rant. He went on to cast aspersions on another eagerly awaited report, on the use of state funds on Nkandla, the president ’ s homestead in KwaZulu-Natal.

The public protector has released her findings on the SABC and any objections to those should be supported with fact, not rhetoric that serves only to stoke fires and undermine the foundations on which our democracy is built.