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Political parties react to the SABC board’s resignations

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The African National Congress (ANC)  says the resignations of four South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board members mean that the board cannot form a quorum.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has accepted the resignation of Khanyisile Kweyama, Krish Naidoo, John Mattison and Mathatha Tsedu.

ANC MP Lerumo Kalako, however, says this does not mean that the SABC cannot continue with its daily business as its top three executives can take decisions.

“It means that the board will not sit as a board because it cannot take any decisions because it is not quourating. Then it doesn’t mean that the executives cannot continue with operations and make decisions which they can bump to us as a shareholder and then they can continue to do such things,” says Kalako.

Resignation highly unfortunate: DA 

The DA says the resignation of these board members, all who were part of the SABC’s interim board and instrumental in steering the SABC to calm waters following the disastrous Hlaudi Motsoeneng era, is highly unfortunate.

The DA says Parliament’s Communications Committee must urgently advertise the new vacancies in the SABC board. The four resignations which President Cyril Ramaphosa has accepted add to other three resignations and one withdrawal earlier in the year.

DA spokesperson on Communications Phumzile van Damme says another advertisement must now be issued with the same deadlines of nominations to close on December the 21st so that they can all be interviewed in January next year.

“The resignation of these board members is most unfortunate it would have been desirable for board members to stay on board and work together to fix the dire financial crisis facing the SABC which has now been exacerbated by the legal interference of the new communications minister we will now be writing to the chair of the committee requesting that the vacancies be immediately advertised.”

“It would have been desirable for all board members to stay on and work together to fix the dire financial crisis facing the SABC which has now been exacerbated by the illegal interference of the new Minister of Communications, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams,” reads the DA statement.

It further notes that: “We are aware of the interim board members’ implication in the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) investigation into the awarding of a security tender, which was found to have been awarded irregularly. There was financial misconduct in contravention of the PFMA and we await the final report anticipated to be released in March 2019.”

The four vacancies that existed due to the resignations of Rachel Kalidass, Victor Rambau, Febbe Potgieter-Gqubule and the withdrawal of Nomvuyiso Batyi have been advertised.

ACDP blames Minister 

The ACDP is blaming Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams for the resignation of four SABC board members.

ACDP MP Steve Swart says these resignations are regrettable considering that the country will soon hold national elections.

“The ACDP finds it highly regrettable and it is as a direct result of the new minister not understanding her clear role and interfering in the running of the SABC and we’ve seen it over and over in the past i sat on the SABC adhoc committee that dealt with same issue and we really hoped that when this board was appointed it will be independent.”

EFF calls on President’s intervention

The EFF calls on Cyril Ramaphosa to intervene in the SABC Board crisis and exodus of Board members. It is not a secret that the problems of the SABC lie in the financial crisis it faces, it says.

“Ramaphosa and his government must give the SABC the guarantee it needs to raise meaningful money in order to stabilize.”

The EFF says it has written a letter to President Ramaphosa calling on his intervention. “To this day, he has yet to respond, and SABC is going under.”

“Majority of the board members will resign, because there is no support from government in terms of the guarantee. They have literally been set up to fail. The EFF believes that many in the ANC want the collapse of the SABC, to institute a new board that they can control towards 2019 Elections. How can a minister demand SABC to rethink its retrenchment plan, when she is not giving them any guarantee? It is a clear strategy to have SABC fail, so as to impose an interim board that they can control,” the EFF statement said.

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