ANC's cadre deployment documents place SABC at centre of party's 2019 elections campaign

JOHANNESBURG - Meeting documents from the African National Congress(ANC) have put the SABC at the centre of the governing party’s 2019 general election campaign.

This is information coming out of the ANC’s cadre deployment documents, released to the public by the Democratic Alliance (DA) on Wednesday.

The SABC is part of a list of state-owned companies where the ANC hand-picked board members as part of its controversial cadre deployment policy.

The ANC cadre deployment committee met at the party’s Luthuli House headquarters in March 2019.

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The meeting, like several other meetings on the 10th floor, was chaired by then-Deputy President David Mabuza.

On the agenda was the discussion about the appointment of the SABC board.

Two months before the 2019 national and provincial elections, the committee appeared to be in a hurry to finalise the board before the May 8 polls.

In the now public memo, the committee also warned that the new board would need to carefully manage the news agenda at the SABC.

The governing party has been accused of using the public broadcaster as its mouthpiece to capture millions of potential voters by flighting programmes that paint it in a positive light.