The Times Editorial: Reports this week suggesting that tensions within the ANC-led alliance are playing themselves out in the SABC's top management and board are deeply depressing.

For years now the public broadcaster has lurched from one crisis to another while its managers dithered, bickered and litigated.

Programming has suffered, repeated accusations of political bias have been levelled at the news department, expenditure has shot through the roof - and taxpayers have had to pick up the bill. Last year alone, the bailouts amounted to about R1-billion.

The damaging power struggle between former chief executive Dali Mpofu and the board is now in danger of being eclipsed by a ferocious battle between members of a newly constituted board on the one hand and the board's chairman, Ben Ngubane, and the broadcaster's chief executive, Solly Mokoetle, on the other. At issue seems to be the appointment, by Ngubane and without board approval, of Phil Molefe as head of news.

The headlong rush by ANC alliance officials to enter the fray, defending their preferred SABC heavyweight, lays bare a fundamental truth about the board - it is, in large part, a hodge-podge of individuals representing competing interests in the alliance.

A lasting solution to the SABC malaise will be found only when the board's independence is guaranteed and when its members are drawn from the ranks of South Africans who are widely respected for their ability and unimpeachable integrity, not just for their party-political connections. Such a board should have the power to ensure effective corporate governance at the broadcaster, and to appoint executive managers on merit.

We have to convince the government to release the corporation from the dead hand of politics.