Johannesburg — THERE is an expression, beloved of cynics, along the lines that a good crisis should never be allowed to go to waste. Judging from some of the provisions contained in the draft Public Service Broadcasting Bill published on Friday, Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda is intent on taking full advantage of the financial and credibility crisis the public broadcaster finds itself in.

If we were convinced that the goal of the wide-ranging interventions proposed in the draft was to fix all that is wrong with the SABC, we might be inclined to support far-reaching amendments to the existing legislation. However, that does not appear to be the case. The overwhelming impression left by the bill is of a power grab by the government, with taxpayers being called on to finance it.

One week we have Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan promising that the state will cut its suit to fit the cloth available to it as tax revenues slump and government debt soars, the next Nyanda is suggesting that the SABC be obliged to launch a host of new public service channels. And to top it all, he wants to create three new advisory boards, which would both duplicate the functions of Parliament and the communications regulator, Icasa, and undermine them by requiring that the new boards report directly to the minister.

This is as unacceptable as the provision calling for a 1% increase in personal income tax, which would surely not have made it into the bill at all had the draft followed the normal route to Parliament, including broad consultation before being published for public comment. There has been no consultation that we are aware of - not even within government and Nyanda's colleagues at the Treasury department, if the tax proposal is anything to go by - and the time allowed for public comment is ridiculously short given the ramifications of the proposed change.

If railroaded through as is, the new law would amount to a unilateral decision to change the SABC from a public broadcaster that theoretically operates independently of the government of the day, to a state broadcaster that is expected to actively promote the government's "development goals". That would spell the end of any pretence at editorial independence by any of the SABC's numerous television and radio stations, with Nyanda given extraordinary powers to intervene. Do we really want an SABC that is ultimately answerable to the government of the day, rather than to an independent board and regulator?

There is likely to be an outcry over the tax proposal, but that is just one aspect of a Draconian draft bill that cannot be allowed to become law if we value our hard-won freedoms in this country. If this is the kind of transparency and public participation the Zuma administration promised when it came to power, it can keep it.