South Africa's parliament portfolio committee dealing with applications from the public for the several vacant positions for the SABC board has had to dump 90 - from primarily young people - applying for "internships" to serve on the board of the South African public broadcaster.
Besides the 90, parliament received 233 applications - 243 of the overall total submitted during December 2018 - for the 8 SABC board vacancies.
The committee will from next week, Tuesday 26 February, begin the process of shortlisting candidates to be interviewed to fill the vacant SABC board positions.
Parliament's apparently lazy portfolio committee on communications led by chairperson Hlengiwe Mkhize has been criticised for having taken months to start the process to sift and begin interviews with shortlisted candidates for the positions.
Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) has slammed the delay by South Africa's government and parliament's portfolio committee on communications to appoint new SABC board members for the vacancies that have existed for months, as a gross dereliction of duty, a violation of their oath of office, and "acts of treason".
The SABC, commercially insolvent, has once again been adrift rudderless for months, hovering on the brink of complete financial collapse with an unstable and inquorate SABC board, months before 9 May's national election date in an election year.
The SABC board is supposed to have 12 board members including the SABC CEO, COO and CFO, and requires 9 new ones.
Parliament's portfolio committee on communications led by chairperson Hlengiwe Mkhize, lied, saying it would return in early-2019, and then lied again to the South African public saying it would start the process of interviews in mid-January. Neither happened.
Parliament's current term ends on 20 March, leaving a month to complete interviews, chose candidates and send those names for the SABC board to the National Assembly to then send the names to president Cyril Ramaphosa to ceremonially rubberstamp and approve.
Hlengiwe Mkhize blamed parliament staff for moving slowly with the administration and bureaucracy, saying on Tuesday that "it's a due process overseen by the legal department. There are steps. You can't just jump and take over."
Phumzile Van Damme from the Democratic Alliance (DA) political party said it was "a shame and an embarrassment" to blame the secretariat of the parliamentary committee for the false promises and that Hlengiwe Mkhize should take the blame.
