THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa has compared former SABC head of news Snuki Zikalala to Nazi Germany's infamous propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

In a statement released yesterday, Numsa's spokesperson Castro Ngobese said Zikalala's actions "were a ghost resurrection" of Goebbels to "poison the minds of South Africans and to silence dissent in the public discourse".

This came after a Johannesburg high court ruling on Monday in which Zikalala was found to have manipulated and censored news coverage by the public broadcaster.

Ngobese added the judgment confirmed their long-held view that Zikalala was using the SABC as spewing machinery "to advance certain sectarian political agendas for varying factional interests in and outside the ANC pre-Polokwane".

Zikalala yesterday dismissed Numsa's statement as "amateurish and did not deserve to be taken seriously", adding that it was unfortunate that Numsa jumped the gun without understanding what the issues were and are currently.

"I was born in the ANC and gone through the mills of the ANC and the SACP," he said.

"I know what human rights are because that is what made me join the struggle. There is no way I could be compared to Goebbels because he was a Nazi German who persecuted Jews and engaged in gross violation of human rights."

Asked to comment on the judgment, Zikalala said he would rather let the SABC and Icasa deal with the matter.

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