The Inkatha Freedom Party utterly opposes the public broadcaster’s decision to remove news broadcasts in South Africa’s Indigenous languages. SABC News stated that as of April 1st, they will no longer have Afrikaans news or news in any of the Nguni languages. They will replace the slots with a government programme called “The State of our Nation.”
The IFP’s Secretary General, Ms Sibongile Nkomo, MP said, “The SABC is now contradicting its own mandate, as it has previously stated that the SABC News channel would be an opportunity for the broadcaster to ‘enhance its public service mandate and extend its focus on provincial stories and the different official languages’; now, instead of expanding its programmes, they are removing indigenous languages news”
The IFP is extremely concerned about the rights of the people who only understand Afrikaans and Nguni languages since the channel will only broadcast news in one language, namely English.
“The heritage and culture of many South Africans is now being slowly eroded by the SABC, who are meant to be the guardians of the various languages and cultures in our country. English is not the only language that is spoken and understood by South Africans. The SABC must promote all official languages,” said Nkomo.
“It is also very concerning that the government has allowed the situation at the SABC to deteriorate to this level. Our government cannot continue to claim to represent all South Africans, when it
allows other languages to be marginalised. We have 11 official languages in our country – the SABC’s very existence is to promote and preserve the use of these languages and not favour one over the other. This is absolutely unacceptable” said Nkomo
