Board moves to suspend SABC boss

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board has moved to suspend CEO Solly Mokoetle, it emerged on Tuesday after the Western Cape High Court overruled attempts by Parliament to hold a briefing on the latest trouble at the public broadcaster behind closed doors. "They [the board] have served him with a legal letter with the intention to suspend him and he has been given an 'x' number of days -- exactly how many days I don't know -- to respond to the letter to explain why he should not be suspended," said Ismail Vadi, the chairperson of Parliament's portfolio committee on communications.

Vadi was speaking to reporters after the media won an interdict preventing the committee from continuing with an in-camera meeting with the SABC on renewed strife at the broadcaster, a mere eight months after Mokoetle and the new board took up their positions.

The ruling was handed down as an interim order shortly before noon by Acting Judge Sven Olivier, following an urgent application by the South African National Editors' Forum (Sanef). It came after the committee allowed SABC chairperson Ben Ngubane -- who has fallen out with commissioners -- to deliver a submission defending his position. "He expressed very serious concerns about the disfunctionality of the board and he cited a whole number of examples which he had experienced which contributed towards the state of disfunctionality."

Following the court order, Vadi decided to suspend the meeting with the SABC indefinitely, rather than proceed and allow the press to attend. He said he needed to discuss the way forward with Parliament. "I think we still need to confer with the speaker's office and the leadership of Parliament about the implications of the judgement because this has a bearing on the functioning of Parliament as a whole and on other committees."

Vadi said the meeting remained urgent because members of the legislature were perturbed by the problems besetting the SABC. These were brought to a head by Mokoetle's decision to name Phil Molefe as head of news without the agreement of the board. Ngubane's backing for the appointment further soured relations between him and commissioners. "It is a matter of very serious concern to the committee, that is why we summoned the board to appear before the committee," Vadi said. He decided last week to close most of the meeting to the press, for fear of the legal implications of having somebody's reputation and position challenged in public.

Sanef had on Monday through its lawyers asked the committee to open the meeting, but the committee decided on Tuesday morning that the session would stay closed to the public and media. Sanef lawyers were in the Western Cape High Court as the meeting got under way. When the committee failed to give an undertaking to suspend the meeting while the application was being heard, they asked Acting Judge Olivier for the order. In his ruling handed down just before noon, Olivier ordered that the committee not proceed with any sitting from which the public, including the media, were excluded. This order would be valid until "the final determination of this matter".

The ruling came amid an increasingly tense stand-off between the media and government over a perceived attack on media freedom, weighted around the Protection of Information Bill and the ANC's proposal for a media tribunal that reports to Parliament. In an affidavit filed in support of Sanef's court application, the forum's secretary general, Gaye Davis, said there was a clear public interest in the meeting. "The SABC is resourced with public funds, and the public has a clear interest in its functioning and a right to information concerning the affairs of the SABC," she said. "As a corollary, the media has a right and indeed an obligation to report on the functioning and affairs of the SABC."

Idasa sent a letter to Vadi on Tuesday criticising the committee's bid to hold the meeting in camera before the court ruling was made. "The problems within the SABC have persisted and holding a closed meeting simply creates the perception that facts are being withheld from the public."

Idasa said Parliament was obliged by section 59 of the Constitution to "conduct its business in an open manner, and hold its sittings and those of its committees in public". Attempting to hold the SABC briefing behind closed doors could set a dangerous precedent, it warned. "Idasa is concerned that closing the meeting will set an unhealthy precedent which other committees may in future also follow, thereby leading to a culture of exclusion and secrecy within Parliamentary committees."

Source: Mail & Guardian

ANC Admits Party Racked By Bribery, Vote Buying

THE African National Congress (ANC) has admitted that bribery and vote buying are widespread in its branches and threaten to subvert its internal democracy.

In discussion papers released ahead of its national general council meeting in Durban next month, the party said money increasingly influenced the outcome of elections in the party. It raised the question of whether members with money had more influence than the rest of the membership. It also warned of the increasing use of violence and of meetings and conferences being disrupted by disgruntled members.

Since its conference in Polokwane in 2007, money in the competition for party positions had grown in influence. People were even being paid to disrupt meetings, it said . Outright bribery, the provision of cellphone starter packs and free travel were some of the incentives used to buy votes. The party proposed an integrity committee to probe allegations of improper conduct. This would help to "prevent misdemeanours" and protect "genuine black business people and entrepreneurs who have links with the ANC from getting a bad name".

The ANC already has guidelines on lobbying for internal elections, but bribery and vote buying have persisted. It is concerned that funding for the party could be used to influence leadership and policies and affect its integrity. Judith February, a political analyst at democracy watchdog Idasa, said the ANC had repeatedly shown an unwillingness to regulate the funding of political parties through legislation. "We are not sure that the ANC is committed to this ... all they have done is stonewall. "

Although the ANC has never fully disclosed its funders, it said the issue needed to be debated. "Our approach towards party financing will therefore have to be broader, so that it also deals with the 'informal' party financing, which is so much more insidious and dangerous to internal democracy," it said.

The ANC has been linked to questionable funding sources, including kickbacks from the more than R30bn arms deal and a R38,5bn subcontract linked to its investment vehicle, Chancellor House, for the supply of boilers to Eskom.

Results of a study by TNS Research Surveys released on Tuesday showed that the majority of South Africans felt the ANC should not be allowed to be connected to any companies that received government tenders.

Source: All Africa

Row Looms Over Closed Briefing On Dodgy Arms Sales

A confrontation is on the cards tomorrow if Parliament's defence committee proceeds with a "closed" meeting to discuss alleged "dodgy" arms deals approved by the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC). This follows the publication in parliamentary papers of a notice announcing that committee chairman Jeff Radebe , who is also justice minister, would brief the committee on arms sales behind closed doors. His attendance at the committee follows the publication last month by the Democratic Alliance (DA) of details of arms sales to repressive regimes.

The weekend press quoted African National Congress chairman of the defence committee Nyamezeli Booi as saying the decision to make the meeting closed was taken after consultation with committee members. DA defence spokesman David Maynier denied this, saying he was never canvassed on the issue. Maynier said the decision to let Radebe appear before the portfolio committee on defence and military veterans "in secret is a deliberate attempt to cover up the truth about dodgy arms deals with some of the most repressive regimes in the world. The public have a right to know how it was that we sold, attempted to sell or demonstrated and exhibited conventional arms in states such as Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea and Zimbabwe, despite legislation aimed at ensuring that we do not trade in conventional arms with states engaged in repression, aggression and terrorism. The NCACC should therefore be held to account in an open and transparent meeting by members of the portfolio committee on defence and military veterans."

Support for the DA's position came independently from the Institute for Democracy (Idasa).The head of Idasa's political monitoring service, Judith February, wrote to Booi, pointing out that the constitution required the National Assembly to facilitate public involvement in the legislative and other processes of Parliament, and hold sittings of committees in public. The public and media could be excluded only when reasonable and justifiable. February noted that the NCACC was required by law to report quarterly to Parliament and to the public on the types of weapons sold and to whom, and, asked Booi, why it had been decided to close the meeting. She copied the letter to National Assembly speaker Max Sisulu.

Maynier said he too had written to Booi, asking who had decided that the meeting should be closed. "The facts about the trade in conventional arms and the dodgy arms deals must not be swept under the parliamentary carpet."

Source: All Africa