Vuyo Mvoko still out in the cold at SABC
Veteran SABC news anchor and contributing editor Vuyo Mvoko was not mentioned in the SABC statement reinstating seven axed journalists.
|||Cape Town - Veteran SABC news anchor and contributing editor Vuyo Mvoko was not mentioned in the SABC statement on Wednesday reinstating seven axed journalists, suggesting his fight for the enforcement of his contract continues.
This, after a day of high drama in which the SABC initially informed four of the journalists, who had won a Labour Court order for their reinstatement, they would not be allowed to return to work as it would appeal the judgment, only to announce later it had instructed its lawyers to drop the appeal and all seven dismissed journalists would get their jobs back.
The surprise announcement followed a sit-in by Right2Know activists at the broadcaster's Auckland Park headquarters and pre-empted a hearing on Thursday in which the remaining three of the seven were to challenge their dismissal.
The Right to Know activists chanting inside #SABC radio park before being dragged out by security. @ReporterStar pic.twitter.com/Y02sBz5M0x
— Botho Molosankwe (@Mizzyb1) July 27, 2016
Mvoko was not a full-time SABC employee and worked on contract as a contributing editor.
His was the eighth head to roll in the wake of internal resistance to the decision to censor violent protest footage and criticism of the SABC.
Mvoko’s lawyers say he did not bring the public broadcaster into disrepute by criticising its ban on footage of violent protests, but was in fact protecting it.
Referring to an article penned by Mvoko and published by Independent Media in which he described the dire conditions in which journalists worked at the SABC under chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng and other bosses, his lawyers say he did not so much bring it into disrepute as “regretting the disrepute into which conduct of certain individuals had already brought the institution”.
He had criticised Motsoeneng, former group chief executive Jimi Matthews and former news head Snuki Zikalala “for their perversion of the SABC’s mission”.
“The SABC’s mission is to inform, not censor,” Mvoko’s lawyers say in their heads of argument.
Mvoko has applied in the South Gauteng High Court in Joburg for the enforcement of his contract after the SABC said he would no longer be used to produce programmes until their dispute was settled.
In his responding affidavit, SABC general manager, news special events, Simon Tebele, argues that in terms of the contract Mvoko would be used “as and when it is required”, and for the court to order he be scheduled would amount to it telling the public broadcaster which programmes to use and who should present them.
The article was “clearly adverse comment” about the SABC and the SABC said it had a right to protect its reputation, regardless of whether any of its decisions had been right or wrong.
But Mvoko’s lawyers say the management is confusing itself with the institution and Mvoko’s criticism of Motsoeneng can only be taken as extending to the whole organisation “if Mr Motsoeneng regards himself as the embodiment of the SABC”.
His lawyers also said as a journalist Mvoko was informing the public of the “malevolent roles of the senior leadership of the SABC” and offered a critical perspective on a policy which encouraged censorship.
“In short, Mr Mvoko was acting in the public interest,” his lawyers argue.
Mvoko’s matter will be argued in the High Court in Joburg on Thursday.
The ANC, after criticising the SABC’s policy, the dismissal of the journalists and even Motsoeneng’s controversial appointment, has left it to Parliament’s communications oversight committee to tackle the matter after the August 3 elections.
craig.dodds@inl.co.za
Political Bureau