Newly re-elected PAC president Narius Moloto has taken the SABC to task for what he claims has been “concealing black history and the pain of apartheid”.
The SABC which is at most times struggling to pay salaries, may now have to explain to Parliament on the alleged plot to whitewash apartheid.
Moloto said he had written to the SABC board, the Minister of Communications, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, the portfolio committee on communication and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa to complain about what he deemed “a gag on black history”.
This emanates from a complaint Moloto made against the SABC claiming the broadcaster was only covering the ANC, the DA and EFF’s election campaigns. Moloto claimed that in the last 10 years the SABC had only looked for negative stories about the PAC.
“The national broadcaster has blotted out the PAC’s struggle history. If we are lucky to get a mention, all they’ll talk about are the factions and challenges within our party. They’re trying to blot out how much apartheid hurt black people.
“Our part in the Struggle is never mentioned. Every party has challenges but they will go out of their way to find individuals to insult the party” Moloto said.
In an interview with Independent Media, Moloto said they were aware that journalists we taking money to air good stories.
“They won’t cover us objectively because we don’t have money to give them. We don’t bribe people for good press. It is a known fact that that is the way things work now”.
Moloto has had his share of controversy in the last few months with another PAC grouping saying their elective conference was illegally constituted and Moloto was not the president of the PAC. Although two court judgments have taken Moloto’s side, the other faction is still baying for blood.
“The national broadcaster has made it its duty to disinform the public about the PAC. Last week Friday it reported about a non-existent court order preventing our conference. According to them, we did not proceed with the national congress in Limpopo. Although after heavy engagements it was later corrected, last week they entertained a PAC ‘defectee’ Apa Pooe who went there to repeat the same lies without taking him to task,” Moloto added.
Moloto said South Africa should not be in the dark about who fought for freedom, claiming that they were with the ANC in the trenches.
“We understand that it is convenient and financially rewarding to report on the ANC as the only party that fought for freedom, but no one should attempt to obliterate the PAC from history.”
The SABC board had not responded to Independent Media’s questions by the time of going to print.
Another faction claiming to be the real PAC said they would be holding their special congress next month.