Only seven of the 34 candidates for the new SABC board have been vetted by the State Security Agency (SSA), a development that has caused a delay in the appointment of men and women to hold to account the management of one of the largest state-owned enterprises.
The mandate of the old board, which was divided between those supporting chairperson Bongumusa Makhathini and his deputy, Mamodupi Mohlala-Mulaudzi, ended on Saturday, paving way for the new board to start operating from tomorrow.
However, delays caused by the vetting process being carried out by the SSA and the SAPS have delayed the process to appoint a new board, raising the possibility of an interim board that could be appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, who returns from his state visit to Saudi Arabia tomorrow.
Boyce Maneli, Parliament’s chairperson of the portfolio committee on communication and digital technologies, said he was confident that they would appoint a new board in the next “few weeks”.
He said they would ask the house chairperson of committees Cedric Frolick to request leader of government business deputy president David Mabuza to appeal to the SSA fast track vetting of the remaining 27 candidates and explain the delay to Ramaphosa.
“The portfolio committee on communication and digital technologies having realised that it won’t recommend on time candidates for appointment by the president to take over as board members of the SA, and following advise of legal services from Parliament to the effect that no provision exist in the Broadcasting Act for the recommendation of interim board after the expiry of a sitting board (the Act is silent), it sought to request the chair of chairs for committees in parliament to reach out to the leader of government business,” Maneli said.
He added that they were proposing that the current board should remain in place until the appointment of a new one.
However, DA committee member Diane Kohler Barnard said the National Assembly (NA) had powers to recommend to Ramaphosa to appoint his interim board.
“Section 15A(3) of the Act states that once the board is dissolved the president (on the advice of the NA) must appoint an interim board consisting of the three SABC executives and five other persons recommended by the NA. The interim board must be appointed by the president within 10 days of receiving such recommendations from the NA and is appointed for a period not exceeding six months, which of course would cover the period during which the ANC congress is to be held,” she said.
The last time an interim board was appointed was in 2017 and four of its members resigned the very next year amid strained relations with the government.
Communication Workers Union general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala has slammed the delays in the appointment of the new board, saying the extension of the mandate of the outgoing board and the appointment of an interim board were not ideal given the current circumstances at the public broadcaster.
“The legacy of the outgoing board is littered with a series of failures. Amongst other is a retrenchment project that they promised the world it would save R3 billion per annum. This project failed dismally as they had to re-advertise all posts that were identified as redundant. This was not surprising because they were warned about these irrational retrenchment processes,” he said.
“They further misled everyone that there would be a 3 year salary freeze yet in reality only workers on the ground had to take a fall. The board and executive scooped home handsome salary increases ranging with non executive directors (board), executive directors and senior management’s salary bill from R45 million to R49 million, a 10.61% increase,” he added.
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