Denise Williams
PARLIAMENT has approved the appointment of Ellen Tshabalala, President Jacob Zuma's adviser on the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Advisory Council, as the interim chairwoman of the SABC board.
Tshabalala's appointment and that of four others follows the dissolution of the collapsed board by the National Assembly yesterday.
Zuma will now have to approve parliament's recommendation.
The other members are: Noluthando Gosa (deputy chairman), Iraj Abedian, Vusi Mavuso and Ronny Lubisi.
Lubisi is a charted accountant while Mavuso was finally given the nod to sit on the SABC board after failing to make the cut in the previous round of nominations.
Economist Abedian is the non-executive director of the Capital Property Fund and also a member of the Development Bank of South Africa.
Gosa has sat on the board before but has resigned twice and was the only member from the dissolved board to be appointed. She is the chief executive of Akhona Properties.
The decision to dissolve the board came after the mass resignations of seven board members this week.
The chairman, Ben Ngubane, and deputy chairman Thami ka Plaatjie resigned earlier this month, and Patricia Makhesha stepped down in January.
With only two members left – Suzanne Vos and Claire O'Neil – portfolio committee on communications chairman Sikhumbuzo Kholwane said it was impossible for the board to function
"You don't have a board, there is a vacuum as we speak. It is just on auto pilot," he said.
The collapse at the public broadcaster has been fraught with allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement. The special investigative unit report into the claims has yet to be made public.
Tensions also reached boiling point recently when Communications Minister Dina Pule intervened in a decision taken by the board.
The board had accused Pule of interference after she wrote a letter overturning the board's removal of acting chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
Yesterday, Pule was at pains to assure the committee she had not interfered.
She said she had only insisted that due process be followed when appointing and removing executives.
"The SABC [board] refuses to understand where I come from; they leak letters to the media and choose which letters they leak to the media, and they interpret in the way they want to interpret."
Vos told the committee it was clear the board no longer had the support of Pule. "It would appear the honourable minister of communications does not trust this board and has of late seemed to have been openly contemptuous of our perfectly legal decision-making," she said.
The DA's Marian Shinn said the dissolution of the board had been bulldozed through by ANC MPs.
"We have ended up with a process that is characterised by ulterior motives, possibly the installation of a new crop of ANC cronies to do Luthuli House's bidding at Fawlty Towers."
COPE MP Juli Kilian said: "We are aware of a deliberate attempt, an instruction by Luthuli House on Sunday, for board members to resign."
ANC caucus spokesman Moloto Mothapo, however, commended parliament's "swift intervention".
The interim board will take over the reins for a maximum of six months until a new board is appointed by parliament.
