NUM condemns SABC‘s aspirant pornographers
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has noted with disgust the continuous malicious propaganda and pornographic machinery unleashed by the SABC upon its good name in the name of news.
The SABC has last night aired a very disgusting video it argues was produced during the NUM strike at Impala Platinum in Rustenburg. As a matter of fact, the NUM never led a strike action at Implats but NUM members were forced to participate in the illegal strike through intimidation, coercion and violence. Secondly, the NUM has been aware of the video since January which the company and our members have vehemently denied it was taken at Impala. We are highly perturbed that the SABC ‘s aspirant pornographers saw it fit to go public with such a video without checking its authenticity nor seeking comment from the NUM on the matter.
It is very clear from where the NUM stands that the SABC has unleashed a dirty campaign against the NUM in pursuit of political factionalism and in retaliation to our criticism of how it narrowly carries its public broadcasting mandate.
The National Union of Mineworkers demands that those involved in "cooking" the video, approving it to go on air and associating it with it be dismissed with immediate effect.
We further appeal to the shareholder to provide leadership on the continuous crisis of leadership and management at the SABC and to ensure that those vested with powers hire the most competent people to run the news rather than people with a history of delivering "apartheid news" to the nation.
The NUM believes that it is no coincident that a video produced in January sees light at the SABC weeks before our congress and is categorised as "news". As a matter of fact, the NUM hosted a very successful high-level energy indaba which the SABC shelved in favour of pornography.
The SABC has become a shameful organisation delivering propaganda to the nation and must be thoroughly investigated and be put under administration. The aspirant pornographers and politicians must be done away with if the SABC is to be successful in delivering on its public mandate.
Text of NUM's open letter to the SABC, April 24 2012:
An open letter to the SABC
Overhaul the SABC management; dismantle the board; deal with incompetence
I write this letter on behalf of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and its 320 000 members in mining, construction and energy. I write this letter to raise our concerns that in addition to your glaring incompetence; financial mismanagement and many other ailments, you have now added two more caps; those of being a promotion machinery and propagandist for the anti-revolutionaries and an aspirant pornographer all in the name of public broadcasting.
The NUM has on a number of occasions raised its concerns on the problematic manner your institution covers its news particularly your television division. The first time we did that, we were given a long lecture on Karl Marx as if we were aspirant political scholars whilst the SABC admitted it has erred. The second time around, we were promised change and now we are seeing a repetition of the same old kind of nonsense.
As the NUM, we demand that the SABC issues a public apology to us for making our reputable union a participant in your pornographic movie and for insinuating that the union is a producer of such movie. Mineworkers and all the members we represent have no aspirations in pornographic and lewd film-making and we distance ourselves to the filthy movie you produced as part of your news last night.
We now see the reason why you and other like-minded media must be censored. The SABC has gone to the lowest level in its production of news and we demand that you and your management must excuse us and not wait to be fired. We just can't believe that our taxes are used to pay you and your lot for the production and dissemination of lewd material. We just can't believe that your intellectual capability is so low not to question the authenticity of the material you air from third parties, particularly cellphones.
We do not want to drag our names to your level; the level of poor judgement; the level of an organisation masquerading as a news organisation when in essence it has aspirations of becoming everything; aspirations to be a political organisation and aspirations of venturing into pornographic business. The NUM is not a highly conflicted organisation; we are a union that represent members, finish en klaar! We do not want to be characters in a lewd movie!
We wonder whether our beautiful country is running out of brains and talent to run the SABC as efficiently as possible when apartheid agents are running the show in your organisation and casting doubt on the integrity of South Africa and being paid for it. We call on the state to come to the party and exorcise your organisation of the demons that continue to haunt it; the demons of backwardness and lack of civility and vision.
We made it clear on numerous occasions that we expect no favours from the public broadcaster and we owe no favour and will provide none. It is no coincidence that our detractors and those who receive favours from the broadcaster believe our views belong to the dustbin and have become self-appointed spokespeople of the disgraced organisation, but our stance and history will prove us to be right. The SABC needs to be overhauled; management must be completely overhauled and the board dismantled! Until such time that happens, the SABC will forever be a mouthpiece and propaganda machinery of politically immature micky-mouses and would belong to the dustbin of history.
Lastly, please leave our public broadcaster and ask your board to dismantle itself so we can have people who are capable of separating governance issues from administrative ones. This is not a request but a demand!
Lesiba Seshoka
NUM National Spokesman
Statement issued by Lesiba Seshoka, NUM National Spokesman, April 24 2012
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