Upon hearing this week that communications minister Solly Malatsi had withdrawn the fundamentally flawed SABC Bill , I was immediately inclined to welcome the decision publicly. The bill had been widely criticised by leading industry , civil society and media groups , which were united in calling for the bill to be withdrawn and for policy to be finalised before it was tabled again. This piece was originally published on Michael Markovitz’s Substack, Media Explorations – read the original article here I was therefore surprised when the chair of parliament’s portfolio committee on communications & digital technologies, Khusela Sangoni Diko, issued a strong statement condemning the withdrawal of the bill , and the deputy minister, Mondli Gungubele, took to X on the same day to criticise the decision of his minister.
For those unfamiliar with the political landscape, Malatsi is a member of the Democratic Alliance, while Gungubele and Diko are members of the ANC. Their parties are partners in the government of national unity. In terms of cooperative governance, it would have been preferable for the minister to discuss the bill’s withdrawal with his deputy and the committee chair before making his decision, even though he is not legally required to do so.
On a talk show the following morning, Gungubele was more sanguine, acknowledging that while he considered the bill’s withdrawal “ill-advised”, he would meet with Malatsi for further discussions and seemed confident .