The Presidency has confirmed that President Cyril Ramaphosa received the letter from National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula on 20 December about the approval of the recommended SABC Board candidates.
It says the names of the recommended board members could not be gazetted at that time. It’s more than a month since the Assembly approved 12 names recommended by the Communications Portfolio Committee to serve on the board.
Sunday will mark three months since the previous board’s term ended.
Responding in a text message, Presidential Spokesperson Vincent Magwenya says, “The letter from the Speaker of Parliament was only received on the 20th of December. In terms of the Act, the Board of the SABC must be published in the government gazette. At the time of receipt of the letter, the government printers were already closed.”
Meanwhile, The SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition says it’s concerned about the delay in appointing the new SABC Board.
SOS Coalition National Co-ordinator, Uyanda Siyotula says the appointment of the board should not be delayed any further.
“I mean the names were approved by the National Assembly on the 6th of December and that is more than a month ago. Yes, I understand the ANC conference might have gotten in the way. But now we are in the new year. There is no reason why the board appointment should be stalled any further,” says Siyotula.
She says the coalition has also written to the president to raise their concerns.
“We would like for the president to appoint the SABC Board as soon as possible to avoid any probable collapse of the SABC. And we have also written to the president and we hope that some of our concerns are going to be taken into consideration during the appointment of the SABC Board because there are few names we had concerns with and we have raised these issues with Parliament, with the National Assembly.”
12 candidates recommended for SABC Board:
