it was found that the frequency allocated to Switch in the coastal town clashed with that of TBN television station. The way Switch has been handled by the authorities indicates that the NCC commissioners “do not know what they are doing”. Interestingly, both MTC and Telecom are owned by the Namibia Post and Telecommunications Holdings Company (NPTH), although they are in effect competing against one another. Cell One, launched in March 2007, is also majority owned by a parastatal, NamPower. SCORES: Individual scores: 2, 2, 1, 3, 2, 4, 2, 1, 1 Average score: 2.0 (2005 = 1.3) 3.5 The public broadcaster is accountable to the public through a board representative of society at large and selected in an independent, open and transparent manner. ANALYSIS: The NBC Act of 1991 is based on old South African legislation and places the public broadcaster under the supervision of a board appointed by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting. The first board of the NBC after independence was appointed in a more independent manner, but this is no longer the case. Civil society has been passive about this change in policy and allowed it to happen; therefore it has to take part of the blame. Some members of the panel had the impression that the NBC was losing credibility, viewers and advertisers. “The irony is that if the NBC board was independently appointed and representative of a wide cross-section of society, that would go a long way to regaining the trust and confidence of the public and advertisers, and would serve to strengthen the public broadcaster.” It was shown, however, in the last Afrobarometer analysis that there is an extremely high level of trust in the NBC, “more so than in the independent media”, and that it is therefore a pity that the public broadcaster is not independent and more representative of the people. The board is seen as neither credible nor representative because its members are political appointees. The recent NBC ‘Chat Show’ controversy was a notable illustration of how politicised and how weak the NBC board is. The NBC national radio ‘Chat Show’ was placed under severe restrictions at the end of April 2007 after callers had demanded that former president Sam Nujoma respond to allegations that he collaborated with the CIA. This raised much debate within civil society and government, with some politicians saying that the show allowed too much freedom of speech. The Minister of Information and Broadcasting then gave direct instructions to the NBC’s Director General Vezera Bob Kandetu, without going through the board, to alter the ‘open line’ format of the ‘Chat Show’ and restrict daily discussions to specific themes. A public uproar followed. Subsequently, the state broadcaster put control mechanisms in place to cut out on-air abuse. This involves producers/gatekeepers (up to then the host received calls without any pre-check) and delay devices for all language services, and the ‘Chat Show’ is now back to the normal ‘open line’ format. So This Is Democracy? 2007 -208- Media Institute of Southern Africa