SABC LGE coverage will be credible, accurate and unbiased: Chabeli

South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) GCEO Nomsa Chabeli says the public broadcaster’s mandate to cover the local government elections (LGE) goes beyond than just reporting on election day.

The SABC’s executive management briefed the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies on the state of readiness to cover the elections in November.

Chabeli says the SABC’s task to cover elections includes issues of credibility, accuracy and unbiased reporting.

“Our responsibility goes beyond just reporting on the outcomes of the elections, but it’s the entire ecosystem in terms of between now and the 4th of November and obviously the outcomes and throughout this process you mentioned when we were talking to the CEO of ICASA in terms of misinformation, disinformation. I think what is important for us is basically to ensure the credibility of the information that is going to be going out to the public, that’s going to ensure that it enables our citizens to participate meaningfully in this process.”

SABC Board Chairperson Dr. Khathutshelo Ramukumba says despite funding challenges the corporation is facing, he is confident that the public broadcaster will be able to deliver in the upcoming LGE.

“We still don’t have an indication whether that funding will come through. Suffice to say that, despite that fact, as the SABC, we remain committed to delivering the mandate of election coverage for this year. The only challenge that we anticipate would be that, because we are operating from the normal budget, which is for news and current affairs, it would ordinarily be adequate to cover normal news coverage operations, whereas election news coverage like this one demands that much more scale of coverage.”

VIDEO | SABC appears before Parliament: