The ANC’s desperation to win next month’s general election is reaching dangerous levels. It has to be stopped before it gets out of hand.
Moshoeshoe Monare, the head of news at the SABC, received a call from the State Security Agency (SSA) asking him to submit himself to a “top-level security clearance”, including a polygraph test.
This comes a week after a leaked recording in which Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC president, is asking members of his party to “fiercely confront” anyone taking potshots at the ANC.
It is not the first time the ANC has done this. In the past it has called SABC executives to Luthuli House to scold them. In previous elections, its then head of elections and now secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, “complained” bitterly, without proof, that the ANC was receiving unfair coverage.
A few years ago, the party leant on SABC executives to accept an unsolicited interview with the president a few hours after he returned from an election campaign in Soweto. When this was declined by Phathiswa Magopeni, then head of news and now an SABC board member, her life at the broadcaster became a nightmare.
Before then, the SSA sought to eavesdrop on SABC journalists.
All these outrageous shenanigans are designed to intimidate the SABC newsroom. They have to be challenged by the media fraternity, civil society and opposition parties.
As a public broadcaster, the SABC has clear guidelines from the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) on how to cover elections. These guidelines are over and above the SABC’s own code of ethics and editorial policies.
If the ANC is unhappy about the SABC’s coverage, it should directly approach — not bully — the SABC or escalate its grievance to Icasa.
This latest threat to the SABC’s independence is concerning on several levels. The SSA, which is a terrain of ANC factional battles, has not denied one of its operatives called Monare. It referred to an unnamed “client”. Is the client SSA, the dominant faction of the ANC, state security minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni or the SABC?
The SABC, which is recovering from many years of state capture, has not covered itself in glory with its response. It has yet to openly condemn this shocking interference in its newsroom.
Monare, an outsider from the print media with an impressive record, was starting to build the SABC’s credibility before this intimidation. Surely he would not have been hired to such a senior position in a so-called national key point without prior vetting. Which raises the question: why the need for fresh vetting, including a polygraph test, after two years on the job? Whose toes did he step on to invite this roughing up?
The board, which is ultimately responsible for oversight of the SABC’s news and current affairs output, needs to come out — publicly and quickly — and condemn this act of intimidation as the SA National Editors Forum and Media Monitoring Africa have done.
More importantly, if the SABC did not ask the SSA to vet Monare, it should say so in public and stand by its man. So should Mondli Gungubele, the communications minister responsible for the SABC. The office of the inspector-general of intelligence, the civilian watchdog of our intelligence, should immediately probe this SSA move.
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