The Secretary General of the South African Communist Party (SACP) Blade Nzimande blames state capture and a lack of decisive leadership for the crisis at the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
Nzimande was speaking at the fifth national conference of the Young Communist League at Fort Hare’s Alice campus in the Eastern Cape.
The public broadcaster is in financial crisis. To add to its misery, four board members resigned this week. The SACP lambasted the board for considering retrenchments.
“What is unacceptable is innocent workers who are paying the price for problems that were created politically as a result of state capture,” says SACP Secretary General Blade Nzimande.
He also criticised the Young Communist League for failing to represent the youth.
“It could be much stronger than it is and therefore it has to pick up on issues important to young people, drug abuse, and alcohol abuse violence against women.”
Secretary of the Young Communist League Mluleki Dlilanga says, “We’re expecting the newly elected leadership to take forward the resolution of the conference, and advance the movement and also be actively involved in youth development.”
The SACP has come out in support of land expropriation without compensation. The conference ends on Sunday.
“Manage SABC in the best interests of the country”
Meanwhile Parliament’s Communications portfolio committee chair, Hlengiwe Mkhize, has urged the SABC’s executive to manage the public broadcaster in the best interests of the country as it moves with haste to find and appoint eight new board members.
The DA’s Phumzile Van Damme has tweeted that she interprets Mkhize’s statement as meaning that the eight SABC board vacancies will be filled next month.
The committee says in a statement it has received a letter from President Cyril Ramaphosa that he has accepted the resignation of the four non-executive board members of the cash strapped public broadcaster.
Khanyisile Kweyama, John Matisonn, Krish Naidoo and Mathatha Tsedu – resigned during the course of this week.
The latest spate of resignations have collapsed the board, meaning that it doesn’t have a quorum and can’t make binding decisions.
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