Board upheld freedom

Kanyisiwe Mkonza, former SABC chairman: It is easy to reduce the problems at the SABC to anything but strategy as suggested by your editorial, "Uneasy echoes for new SABC board" (January 3).

It is easy to reduce the problems at the SABC to anything but strategy as suggested by your editorial, "Uneasy echoes for new SABC board" (January 3).

Strategy and its own independence will always be central to challenges faced by the public broadcaster.

Many have chosen to focus on the court battles between the previous board and the CEO.

If one reads past annual reports, it is easy to observe the steady decline in revenue and the upward direction of expenditure. Non-core activities such as the " green revolution" campaigns dominated the annual calendar.

That the previous board's attempt at addressing these strategic issues was met with resistance from some executives with collusion from some outside the SABC does not mean the battles were not about strategy.

It is not surprising that there is now a furore following the appointment of the CEO. The uproar against our board immediately after its appointment was not that it was rushed through by the previous president, as suggested in your editorial.

The issue was that it stood firm in defence of the independence of a public institution and this did not augur well for those who wanted to control the broadcaster for their own agendas.