362 people want to be on SABC board

Hundreds of South Africans have shown interest in becoming full-time board members of the SABC.

Parliament will start the process of short-listing the 362 applications next week‚ which is believed to be the highest number of people to ever apply to join the public broadcaster’s board.

Humphrey Maxegwana‚ an ANC MP who is also the chairperson of the communications portfolio committee‚ said the deadline for applications had lapsed and they would now shortlist and conduct interviews.

“(After deadline) we received 362 applications. The office of the chair is working on summarising who has what in terms of qualifications and who meets the criteria. And then that would be presented to the committee next week when we are short-listing‚” said Maxegwana.

He said the members of the committee had not yet received the list of names and each MP would receive a file with all names and CVs.

“The preparations that we are making is that each member will receive his or her own file that reflects everything: the names‚ experience and all of that‚ so that as we shortlist‚ every member has a picture of the people we have who are interested in being part of the board‚” said Maxegwana.

He said people had shown a lot of interest in the process that is about to start.

Maxegwana added that the committee was satisfied with the work of the interim board‚ whose six-month term expired at the end of September.

“Members will agree with me that even in last meeting we said they are doing a good job up to now and we are satisfied‚” said Maxegwana.

DA MP Phumzile van Damme said the number of applicants was probably “the highest in recent history”.

“It bares testament in interim board’s work right now. It just shows that thus far they’ve done good work‚” said Van Damme.

- Parliamentary Bureau