Communications minister Solly Malatsi has rubbished suggestions that his relationship with his deputy, the ANC’s Mondli Gungubele, has soured over the withdrawal of the controversial SABC Bill.
Gungubele has conducted a number of media interviews in recent days in which he has slammed the minister, a senior Democratic Alliance MP, over his decision to withdraw the bill – a move that has been widely welcomed by the broadcasting industry and civil society groups.
Gungublele lashed out at Malatsi following the bill’s withdrawal, arguing that although finding a sustainable financial model for the public broadcaster is important, Malatsi should have used parliamentary procedures to amend the bill instead of withdrawing it completely. The bill was introduced by Gungubele when he was still minister of communications.
“The relationship [between the deputy minister and me] is still workable,” Malatsi told TechCentral in an interview in Cape Town this week.
“There will be moments where you see things differently and those moments are natural. It has happened before, even with people that come from the same party. The most important thing is, nothing is beyond persuasion.”
Malatsi emphasised that he and Gungubele are still on speaking terms, adding that “sometimes relationships grow stronger when those involved find ways to navigate differences”.
But the withdrawal of the bill has ruffled feathers outside the department and is now threatening the stability of the government of national unity. On Wednesday, minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni accused Malatsi of acting unlawfully in withdrawing the bill.
‘He cannot withdraw it’
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Ntshavheni said: “It’s not a private member’s bill, it’s not Mr Malatsi’s bill. It’s a bill of cabinet and the executive, so in terms of the law he cannot withdraw it without coming to cabinet to agree for its withdrawal.” But Malatsi insisted there is “nothing illegal that we have done”.
According to him, the SABC, as public broadcaster, is too important to the nation for matters of expediency to supersede the process of finding a proper solution to the corporation’s funding crisis.
Read: Withdrawal of bill puts SABC at risk of collapse: Diko
Gungubele, on other hand, argued that the bill gave the minister more than enough time – three years to be exact – to come up with a suitable funding model without the need to withdraw it from parliament.
But in a September presentation to parliament’s portfolio committee on communications & digital technologies, SABC CEO Nomsa Chabeli said the development of a funding model for the ailing public broadcaster “must be expedited” if the SABC is to survive.
Chabeli called for “interim mechanisms” to help solve its funding crisis. Among the funding mechanisms she wants are a “device-independent levy”, the enlistment of the South African Revenue Service and MultiChoice Group to collect these levies, and even preventing citizens from subscribing to streaming services like Netflix without a TV licence.
In his interview with TechCentral, Malatsi was unclear about how long the process to amend the bill will take, giving no direct response to whether it will be tabled in parliament in the current financial year as parliamentary portfolio committee chair Khusela Diko – who has also criticised Malatsi’s decision to withdraw the bill – hoped it would be.
Read: Malatsi was right to scrap the SABC Bill – now urgency is needed
“We have to get the question around the funding model for the SABC right. There is broad acknowledgement that the bill as it stands does not answer that, so why proceed with it…?
“I just want make sure that I am confident that the interventions we are putting in place about the financial future of the SABC are actually credible and that they will help address the fundamental situation that we face right now,” said Malatsi. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media
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