President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed and appointed the eight SABC Board candidates, more than three weeks after the National Assembly passed a resolution for the President to appoint the candidates.
His decision to appoint the candidates comes a day after he met Communications Telecommunication and Postal Services Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams.
The candidates are Mary Papayya, Marcia Socikwa, Mamodupi Mohlala-Mulaudzi, Saths Cooper, Jasmina Patel, Bernedette Muthien, Benjamin Lekalakala and David Maimela.
Presidential Spokesperson Khusela Diko has confirmed the appointments.
“President Ramaphosa has today signed and subsequently, appointed a new board for the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The list of candidates that has been appointed now as board members is the list that he has appointed on the advice of Parliament.”
“And it includes amongst them, names of people with broadcasting experience, people who come from the legal, the finance background and also people with an understanding of the regulatory environment within the South African Broadcasting Corporation operation.”
Related video click below for more on the story:
On Wednesday, Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) said it would issue President Ramaphosa with a lawyer’s letter demanding that he appoint the new SABC Board.
Lawyers for MMA and the SOS Support Broadcasting Coalition had given Ramaphosa until the end of business on Wednesday to appoint the board or face legal action.
MMA Director, William Bird, said they’d received a response from the President, which had merely stated that a new board would be appointed soon. Bird had emphasised that the President should understand the importance of an effectively-run public broadcaster that is able to fully deliver on its mandate before South Africans go to the polls in May.
