UDM calls on speaker to ban eNCA from parliamentary press gallery
In a scathing letter to the channel, Holomisa said that the party has 'tripped over its ego yet again in a missed opportunity' to make mends.
United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa. Picture: SAPA
United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa has called on the parliamentary speaker Thandi Modise to ban 24-hour news channel eNCA from the press gallery.
Holomisa said on Friday that the station was still refusing to apologise to its deputy president Nqabayomzi Kwankwa for the mask incident.
He said that eNCA was not willing to work with the party in finding a consensus on the matter.
Holomisa wrote a scathing letter to the channel saying that it has “tripped over its ego yet again in a missed opportunity” to make mends.
#eNCARacism: Typical! @eNCA denies their barefaced racism & refuses to apologise to UDM Deputy President Nqabayomzi Kwankwa for the “mask incident”.
This is not on! Speaker must ban eNCA from the Parliamentary Press Gallery.#eNCA‘s letter @ https://t.co/NAlQqlN4QW@N_Kwankwa pic.twitter.com/rgPOyMy7im
— Bantu Holomisa (@BantuHolomisa) March 19, 2021
“Despite our attempts to meet eNCA halfway and to make the best of a bad situation, it is clear that the UDM and eNCA had been at two different meetings. The two groups had walked away with divergent understandings of what that meeting had meant and what the intended outcomes had been,” said Holomisa.
He said that Kwankwa feels demeaned as a black South African by the treatment he received initially from journalist Lindsay Dentlinger’s, and also at the hands of the entire company.
This after the channel wrote a statement saying that it does not tolerate racism, and defending Dentliger saying that it “was not racially motivated or with malicious intent”.
ALSO READ: eNCA’s Lindsay Dentlinger apologises for ‘racist’ mask controversy
The UDM had laid a complaint against eNCA with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa and the SA Human Rights Commission over the incident.
The incident was widely criticised by a number of political parties with the ANC going as far as staging a protest outside the station’s headquarters in Hydepark, Johannesburg.
For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.
