SABC's failure to broadcast - parliamentary statement (9 September 2005)The incident was not broadcast and immediately sparked concern that this was a political agenda on the part of SABC. This impression was further deepened when the SABC’s spokesperson claimed that the SABC’s cameraman had not arrived in time to capture the footage of the incident. When E-TV aired footage showing clearly that the SABC cameraman was in fact there during the incident and had recorded it, the unmistakable whiff of a cover-up could no longer be ignored.
Whilst we congratulate the courage and swiftness of the SABC CEO in appointing an enquiry into the matter, we remain concerned about the implications of the entire saga.
Firstly, we still do not have clarity about the extent, if any, of an attempted cover-up. Secondly, the perception of political bias at the SABC is not based solely on this incident and has not been laid to rest.
In these respects we would urge the SABC to immediately institute a full-scale investigation into the possibility of a cover-up. That the original incident was not broadcast is bad enough, that members of the public broadcaster may have deliberately sought to deceive the public about the matter is a complete betrayal of the public broadcaster’s mandate. The SABC must urgently implement measures to protect its editorial independence; current efforts are simply not convincing.