DA left red-faced as BCCSA says SABC was right to air Cyril’s land announcement

The Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (The BCCSA) has found that the South African Broadcasting Corporation did not contravene broadcasting code when it aired President Cyril Ramaphosa’s late-night announcement on land reform.

Ramaphosa’s announcement on July 1 2018 was the ANCs position on land expropriation and economy after the party’s lekgotla. The DA then provided its leader Mmusi Maimane’s response to the announcement which was never aired.

They then took the matter to the BCCSA and argued that the airing of the announcement was “highly irregular and unacceptable for the public broadcaster to accept a packaged video from a political party to interrupt normal programming to air the recording, and then deny opposition parties the opportunity to do the same”.

“The SABC has a mandate to educate and inform the public in an impartial manner. However, giving the ANCs special broadcast on their president’s video on land redistribution without compensation, the SABC has robbed the public of adequate knowledge from different points of view on issues of public importance. They have abused this public institution.”

On Friday, the SABC reported that the BCCSA has found in favour of the public broadcaster.

“The BCCSA has found that the SABC did not contravene the broadcasting code when it aired President Cyril Ramaphosa’s pre-recorded address about land reform in his capacity as president of the ANC,” the broadcaster said on Twitter.

Breaking News: The BCCSA has found that the SABC did not contravene the Broadcasting Code when it aired President Cyril Ramaphosa's pre-recorded address about land reform in his capacity as president of the ANC. pic.twitter.com/kT53zx3Et4

— SABC News (@SABCNews) September 21, 2018

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