{"id":750,"date":"2007-07-25T08:04:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-25T06:04:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-07-25T08:04:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-25T06:04:00","slug":"sabc-to-occupy-hot-seat-endure-icasa-grilling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/telecoms\/750-sabc-to-occupy-hot-seat-endure-icasa-grilling.html","title":{"rendered":"SABC to occupy hot seat, endure Icasa grilling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sabc.co.za\" target=\"_blank\">SABC<\/a> will now be the one in the hot seat, answering to the Independent Communications Authority of SA (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.icasa.org.za\" target=\"_blank\">Icasa<\/a>) on concerns raised by the Freedom of Expression Institute earlier in the year.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Especially its failure to act decisively against the person responsible for the blacklisting of political commentators and journalists by the managing director of news and current affairs, Dr Snuki Zikalala,&rdquo; the institute said yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>The controversy resulted in a complaint being lodged by the institute with Icasa in February. &ldquo;We are hoping for a sanction to be placed on the SABC and we are also hoping this will send a message to the communications portfolio committee that we want a totally new board in the SABC,&rdquo; institute executive director Jane Duncan said .<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow will be the final day for acceptance of nominations for the new SABC board by the committee and the institute has said it will be handing in a list of what it considers to be independent members for review, which it has compiled in association with civil society organisations.<\/p>\n<p>SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago said he did not believe the hearings would have any bearing on the board&rsquo;s nomination process as it was not an SABC matter, but rather a &ldquo;portfolio committee matter&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>The institute&rsquo;s original complaint alleged that, by excluding certain commentators, Zikalala&rsquo;s actions had violated the Broadcasting Act.<\/p>\n<p>Duncan welcomed Icasa&rsquo;s decision not to allow a postponement, saying &ldquo;the SABC has had five months to respond properly, and has failed to do so&rdquo;. As a result, the hearing will proceed, forcing the SABC to respond to the commission&rsquo;s questions, which will include its view on whether it was violating the codes of conduct.<\/p>\n<p>Kganyago said at 5pm yesterday he was not aware that the postponement lodged by the SABC yesterday morning had been thrown out. He said that if it had, the public broadcaster could not comment, but &ldquo;we are going to fight the matter &mdash; whenever it may be&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php?t=82233\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE SABC has been caught with its pants down following a rejection for the postponement of a hearing by the communications authority\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s complaints commission, which will force the SABC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legal team to respond in the hearings that are being conducted by the commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecoms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}