EFF says Newzroom Afrika’s bid win was filled with ‘nepotism and corruption’

MultiChoice’s new channel Newzroom Afrika is a front for the forces of evil and riddled with corruption, according to a statement released by the Economic Freedom Fighters on Tuesday.

The red berets made the announcement after MultiChoice declared Newzroom Afrika had won the channel bid to replace Afro Wordview (previously known as ANN7).

The EFF demands that MultiChoice, which they claim to be “an illegal pay-television monopoly”, publicly issue all the information and processes they engaged in before they made the decision to award Newzroom Afrika the lucrative contract.

“We demand that all information and ratings of the private company tasked with adjudication be made public because we have it on good authority that the chosen company was not the best of those who responded to the bid.

“There is a variety of capable black-owned media broadcasters and practitioners who were isolated and the EFF demands to know the basis of their exclusion.”

The EFF claims the selection of Newzroom Afrika was not fair, transparent or open, and bordered on nepotism and corruption.

The party said they would never be associated with the new platform, which they regard as mediocre and biased.

They intend to submit a request for the public release of all the bid and adjudication processes and also demand that MultiChoice be called to parliament to account about the process.

“We are aware that MultiChoice has for some time been paying bribes to maintain their monopoly position and we will start to intensify the process of dismantling the monopoly. The Competition Commission should also come out clean as to why they are silent on the unlawful monopoly position of MultiChoice, which abuses consumers and bulky competitors out of the market.”

The EFF wants other “players” in the broadcasting space “instead of an entity whose foundation was protection of apartheid through nefarious propaganda”.

The party wants the company to be transparent and says the broadcaster has not learnt from the Gupta phenomenon and is allegely repeating the same corruption they engaged in when they established ANN7.