Actors, Snuki Zikalala, former board members and even controversial Hlaudi Motsoeneng's lawyer under the 363 applications to serve on new SABC board.

Well known actors, Snuki Zikalala, former board members and even controversial Hlaudi Motsoeneng's lawyer are under the 363 applications received to serve on the new SABC board.

Parliament's portfolio committee on Tuesday convened to debate and decide on the details of the process moving forward of shortlisting the candidates to be appointed for the new permanent 12-person SABC board.

The out-of-cash- SABC has seen successive SABC board after board disintegrate with the struggling public broadcaster currently having another interim board that will see its term expire in about a month and a half in September.

Under the 363 applications received are the names of SABC3 Isidingo actor Jack Devnarain who plays Rajesh Kumar, and the film actor Tony Kgoroge.

The SABC's controversial former head of news Snuki Zikalala is also one of the applications - as are Zola Majavu, the controversial Hlaudi Motsoeneng's lawyer who was recently fired by the SABC.

Rich Mkhondo, the former 2010 World Cup spokesperson, and the former ANC Youth League deputy president Ronald Lamola also want to be on the new SABC board. The former SABC board members Rachel Kalidass and Desmond Golding are also willing to return to the SABC.

Current interim SABC board members Febe Potgieter-Gqubule, John Matisonn, Mathata Tsedu, Krish Naidoo and chairperson Khanyisile Kweyama are also on the list.

The portfolio committee suggested that the 363 be shortlisted to 36 candidates with interviews of 45 minutes with each candidate.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) political party's MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said there should be an "emphasis on quality" over quantity in sifting through the 363 applications.

The African National Congress (ANC) political party MP Nokuzola Tolashe said the committee should go "out of its way" to find the best candidates to shortlist for the new SABC board.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) political party's MP Phumzile van Damme said all CV's of the candidates should be published on parliament's website with 5 days for the public to comment.

DA MP Gavin Davies said the academic qualifications of the various candidates should be checked and candidates vetted to avoid a repeat of the 2014 scandal that engulfed the former SABC chairperson Ellen Tshabalala who was exposed for lying about her academic qualifications.

After its first news channel failure, the SABC wanted to turn SABC3 into its new TV news channel not knowing it couldn't, reveals former chairperson dr Ben Ngubane.

After the expensive flop and abrupt shuttering of its struggling first TV news channel, SABC News International, the SABC set its sights on SABC3, wanting to turn its struggling and smallest terrestrial TV channel into its new news channel - unaware that it's not allowed to do so because SABC3 has a commercial TV licence.

The former SABC board chairperson, dr Ben Ngubane, now the chairperson of Eskom, revealed to parliament on Friday in the ongoing inquiry into the beleaguered state of affairs at the South African public broadcaster, that after the failure of SABC News International, the SABC wanted to turn SABC3 into its new news channel.

Instead of turning SABC3 into its new news channel, the SABC eventually signed the now controversial MultiChoice deal to supply a new stand-alone TV news channel to DStv, SABC News (DStv 404).

Together with the old rerun channel SABC Encore (DStv 156), the pay-TV operator paid the SABC hundreds of millions of rand for the two SABC packaged channels to be carried on DStv, with exclusive access to the old library titles from the SABC archives shows on SABC Encore.

SABC News International was started in 2007 by the SABC's former head of news, dr Snuki Zikalala at a cost of more than R85 million but abruptly shut down three years later at the end of March 2010.

The massive cash drain of SABC News International - to the tune of over R80 million per year - on the SABC's already precarious operating budget was one of the big crippling factors that brought the SABC to the brink of financial collapse in 2009.

But the SABC was absolutely adamant to have a TV news channel and next looked to transform one of its existing three TV channels in its second attempt to create one: SABC3.

SABC3 is however the SABC's only commercial TV channel, with SABC1 and SABC2 licensed as its public broadcast service (PBS) channels.


'We couldn't use SABC3'
In parliament's special ad hoc committee investigating the SABC, dr Ben Ngubane revealed that the SABC's previous head of news who was also acting SABC CEO, Phil Molefe "went to India to look for partners to start the 24-hour TV news channel".

"Things get started. Phil Molefe wanted the 24-hour news channel, but to use SABC3 as the 24-hour news channel. When he came back, after a long process, we found that in fact we couldn't use SABC3 because it's a commercial TV station in terms of its licence".

Dr Ben Ngubane said "I did not bring the Guptas to SABC".

"I was aware that Phil Molefe had gone to India to meet a broadcasting company. He came back and sought a mission to convert SABC3 into 24-hour news. And we declined that."

Dr Ben Ngubane said Phil Molefe "also went to London on the same quest to turn SABC3 into 24-hour news".

SABC News (DStv 404) was eventually launched in August 2013 on DStv promising "multilingual programming" delivered "to audiences in all 11 South African official languages". In April 2015 the SABC removed all bulletins in other languages and made SABC News an English TV news channel.