Parliamentary Communications and Digital Technologies Committee chairperson Khusela Diko expressed concern at Communications Minister Solly Malatsi’s decision to withdraw the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Bill from Parliament, saying this will delay the implementation of crucial reforms necessary to save the broadcaster.

In withdrawing the Bill, Malatsi argued that it was “totally flawed” and did not address the faltering funding model of the public broadcaster.

It also assigned too much power to the Minister in appointing board members, he said.

However, Diko believes Malatsi’s decision is “highly ill-advised, and would be the end of the broadcaster”.

She pointed to the SABC’s challenges, which she said required a considered and urgent response, “not trigger-happy action”, which she said served no purpose but to frustrate and disrupt processes already underway.

Diko urged the communications department to accelerate the process of reworking the Bill and reintroduce a new version to Parliament within the current financial year.

In the meantime, the committee will call on Malatsi to indicate how, in the interim, the financial situation at the public broadcaster can be improved to ensure sustainability until the legislation is amended.

“Failure to reintroduce the Bill timeously will leave individual members of the committee or the committee itself with no option but to entertain introducing a committee or Private Members’ Bill in the best interest of the SABC for consideration by Parliament,” Diko said.

She highlighted that to date, the Bill had undergone a thorough public participation process, with the sixth Parliament having received about 20 written submissions and the seventh Parliament prioritising the legislation and holding oral hearings into the submissions in September 2024.

Diko said she strongly believed that an attempt to withdraw the Bill from Parliament would “delay and derail the transformative and developmental interventions the government has been pursuing in State institutions”.

She pointed out that the committee had been at pains to put in place a fast-tracked process to finalise the SABC Bill, “the absence of which has created a serious legislative vacuum that has dire consequences. To this end, the government and even the committee itself have initiated various engagements with stakeholders on the possible funding model for the public mandate of the SABC – the most substantive and urgent of the concerns raised against the Bill.”

Diko urged Malatsi to prioritise the finalisation of the White Paper before stopping a process underway, as this had a bearing on the amendment of the Bill.

She said the public broadcaster could not be allowed to fail because its demise would spell unmitigated disaster also for State-owned provider of electronic communications network services SENTECH.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance commended Malatsi for relinquishing executive powers that would have extended overreach into the SABC.

DA spokesperson on communications and digital technologies Tsholofelo Bodlani said the Bill was “significantly counterproductive.”