The SABC should not grovel to Dlamini-Zuma

When an apology is overstated, we should ask why. The SABC’s apology to Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (NDZ for short) suggests the public broadcaster has chosen her side in the ANC leadership contest.

The corporation committed two lapses, both blown out of proportion. First, someone writing TV-screen taglines omitted the first three letters of NDZ’s surname.

So she was referred to as “Mini-Zuma”. Don’t laugh. Jokes are strictly forbidden.

This may not have been a deliberate mistake. Typographical errors are the stock-in-trade of the other Zupta channel, ANN7.

These institutions do not look for competence when recruiting editorial staff.

Another grievous sin was to refer to NDZ as an ex-wife (of you-know-who). Of course that was sexist and wrong.

NDZ has held three ministerial posts and is a former chair of the African Union Commission.

She deserves recognition in her own right. There is no harm in the SABC pointing this out.

However, SABC acting group chief executive officer Nomsa Philiso went overboard, saying the directors have “instructed news management to investigate the matter thoroughly and urgently in order to get to the bottom of it and ensure that the SABC remains non-partisan”.

SABC spin doctor Kaizer Kganyago was scolded by Philiso for pointing out the obvious: this is “silly season” in the build-up to the ANC elective conference. People in various camps are hypersensitive about perceived bias.

However, both Kganyago and Philiso are wrong to say the SABC is non-partisan.

Despite brave attempts at professionalism by some journalists, the corporation has not shaken off the partisan stigma that comes from labouring under Hlaudi Motsoeneng and predecessors such as Snuki Zikalala.

With Motsoeneng out of the building, there have been expectations about a new order at the SABC.

In this context, the over-reaction by acting CEO Philiso is a sobering backward step. She is serving the interests of not-my-president Jacob Zuma and company.

Lately, NDZ has been trying to create an impression of distance between herself and her ex.

That is difficult because she has been happy to accept his endorsement, and to enjoy the taxpayer-funded services of the Presidential Protection Service, to which she is not entitled.

The name Jacob Zuma is toxic for many reasons. Among those is association with the Guptas.

But NDZ is not free of that connection. Obviously she is not as compromised as is Duduzane’s father.

However, she did visit the Gupta family compound in 2010-2011. Indeed, a question asked by The Citizen in November last year is worth repeating, “What was Dlamini-Zuma doing at the Gupta shebeen in 2011?”

When she was home affairs minister, NDZ asked the Guptas to pay for a business-class ticket to South Africa for a Cameroonian reporter.

The Guptas also bankrolled a competition two years ago in which NDZ received R250 000 and was named “South African of the Year”.

NDZ’s attempts at stand-alone credibility are further hampered by having the discredited Carl Niehaus as her spokesperson and campaign manager. She cannot shake off her Zupta ties.

Melodramatic apologies by the SABC won’t change that. We are not fooled.

DA city councillor for Joburg Martin Williams