Give us our voice

by Editor · April 16, 2008

Radio Veritas, it seems, cannot win. When South Africa�s Catholic radio station previously applied for a national broadcast frequency, the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (Icasa) declined that application on the grounds that Veritas supposedly was not a community station, according to its narrow and absurd definition.

But when Veritas applied for the medium-wave band vacated by Radio Bophutha-tswana, the national telecommunications regulator ruled that this frequency was reserved for commercial broadcasting. Radio Veritas, all of a sudden regarded as a community station, consequently was disqualified from access to the frequency.

It appears that to Icasa, Radio Veritas is neither fish nor fowl. The regulator clearly does not know how to categorise Radio Veritas, with the result that for nearly a decade, all of the station�s applications have been blocked.

Icasa�s lack of flexibility does not serve the interests of South Africa�s Catholic, and indeed Christian, community. It also fails to serve transformation in South Africa.

It would be wrong to attach an anti-Catholic bias to Icasa, because with every declined application the regulator has been able to refer to existing laws and policies (while also exhibiting a distinct lack of understanding the purpose of religious broadcasting).

One may well question, however, whether Icasa is showing enough respect to the Catholic Church and its members by applying these rules as rigidly as it does, with no endeavour made or offered to accommodate the needs of the Catholic community. And so 3,1 million South African Catholics, and many more other Christians, are being disregarded.

The denial of Radio Veritas� latest application demonstrates Icasa�s inflexibility. Apparently there were no other applicants for the frequency, and it seems no commercial broadcaster has an interest in it, specifically because of its location on medium wave. So the frequency remains dormant and unoccupied because it is retained for a category of broadcasters who have no interest in it. Only the most obdurate would argue that the absence of common sense in this circumstance does not require urgent correction.

Meanwhile, should the frequency be re-categorised for use by a non-commercial broadcaster, Radio Veritas has been told that it would need to go through the expensive and complex process of applying for it again�a drain of resources a non-commercial entity can hardly afford.

Surely the sensible option would have been for Icasa to defer judgment on the Veritas application until it was established whether there would be commercial applicants, and in their absence to put into motion a process of reclassifying the frequency to eventually accommodate Radio Veritas, or another non-commercial applicant.

Instead, Radio Veritas, which is financed purely by donations, has hit another wall of obtuse bureaucracy.

Radio Veritas has the capacity and market to become a constructive addition to South Africa�s radio landscape. The community it aspires to serve is the only Christian body to sustain publication of a weekly national newspaper (you are reading it now).

Catholics must assert their petition for wider access to Radio Veritas more forcefully. The station should be flooded with messages of support, this newspaper�s letters page should discuss the station and its future widely, and our collective outrage at the Catholic body being snubbed again should be communicated to Icasa, to our politicians and in the letters pages of the secular press.

Icasa, for whatever reasons, has denied Catholics a voice on the airwaves. It is now time that we shout it from the rooftops that this is an injustice which requires soonest remedy.