Delay in the appointment of SABC board unfortunate, says Presidency

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office has conceded that the process of appointing the SABC board has hit a snag. 

“It’s really unfortunate and regrettable that the appointment has been delayed to this extent, even resulting in interested parties taking the president to court,” said presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya.  

Magwenya was addressing the media at the Union Buildings on Wednesday. 

TimesLIVE reported earlier that the governance crisis at the state broadcaster continued to deepen with its group CEO Madoda Mxakwe telling parliament he was uncomfortable with being its accounting authority in the absence of a board.

Mxakwe told MPs that because the public broadcaster has been without a board since October last year, it is crippled and dysfunctional. 

The appointment has been marred by delays, first by parliament's tardy vetting of candidates by the State Security Agency (SSA). 

Later, in December last year, the National Assembly forwarded names of approved candidates to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

However, the president has so far not appointed the board and is apparently querying the process followed by the National Assembly and some candidates.

At the weekend, the Sunday Times reported that civil society body Media Monitoring Africa has taken Ramaphosa to the Constitutional Court on an urgent basis, asking it to compel him to appoint a board.

Magwenya explained that when Ramaphosa received the candidates’ shortlist on December 20 2022, there were issues that required clarification on the side of parliament with respect to what was handed to Ramaphosa.

“Unfortunately, the resumes of the candidates were handed to the president only between 10 and 13 January so the process was already behind schedule. 

“It did not help that there were issues that were identified to be inconsistent with the law and the president could not proceed while those issues had not been clarified.”  

He said there were objections with respect to certain individuals. 

“The president wanted clarification as to how those objections were dealt with. We are hoping that those issues will be clarified fairly soon and the president can appoint board members.” 

While this was not an ideal situation, Magwenya said, the SABC is a critical institution of our democracy. “It is urgent that governance at the SABC is managed in accordance with the various statutory provisions and that means there must be a board in place and that’s something that the president is fully aware of.”

TimesLIVE

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