The fractured and beleaguered SABC is in for further ongoing years of lacking leadership and uninformed and incompetent governance after parliament's portfolio committee on communications - once again bulldozed by a majority of ANC votes - chose the new names for the 5th SABC board in 5 years whose names will be officially rubber-stamped into office by president
Jacob Zuma soon.
With the unstable and irresponsibly mismanaged SABC in ongoing freefall since 2008, and as much a public mess and public spectacle as it has become known for corruption, rampant mismanagement and directionless and unqualified leadership, parliament yesterday again chose wholly inept people for the SABC board instead of the few experienced, independent, qualified, broadcasting savvy and informed people who were among the nominees.
South Africa's government and South Africa's parliament - in fact South Africa's parliamentary portfolio committee on communications who is tasked with oversight of the SABC - can no longer claim that it is not a part of the massive mess and problem at the SABC.
Parliament and South Africa's government, the portfolio committee on communications is now absolutely complicit and directly responsible - and carry direct blame - for the ongoing tumultuous meltdown at the SABC with the irresponsible, unconscionable way in which SABC boards and SABC board members are chosen and appointed through blatant political motivations, regardless of whether these people even know about broadcasting, managing, leadership and corporate governance.
The South African government and parliament had what many considered as one last and final chance to save the SABC for South Africa and from itself by appointing a SABC board not beholden to ANC or any other political interference; an independent board, knowledgeable about broadcasting, and extremely experienced and prepped to jumpstart the SABC's ailing vitals back to life.
South Africa's ANC majority government and parliament's portfolio committee blatantly CHOSE NOT TO SAVE THE SABC.
Instead the ANC majority of parliament's portfolio committee forced through its votes for candidates who are uniformed and inexperienced about broadcasting to be on the SABC board as cadre deployments and who will -just like previous SABC boards, sit and mismanage a crumbling public broadcasting institution which needs and requires all the intensive emergency care it can possibly get but now again won't.
Why can't the best people and the most experienced people who can help the SABC not be chosen and appointed who would have been able to save the sinking and embarrassing public institution lurching from one scandal and crisis to the next?
Despite opposition from the DA, COPE and the IFP, the ANC rewarded loyalist with positions on the SABC board although there had been clearly much more qualified and talented candidates to try and help steer the SABC out of the huge quagmire the broadcaster has steadily been slipping deeper and deeper into since 2008.
The names forwarded to the National Assembly for consideration on Thursday (little more than a rubber stamp of approval to be passed on to the president for final approval) of the new SABC board include current interim SABC board members such as chairperson and deputy chairperson
Ellen Tshabalala and
Noluthando Gosa, who was a previous SABC board member and then decided she didn't want to do it anymore, but then came back, as well as
Vusumuzi Mavuso and
Ronnie Lubisi.
The other SABC board members will be
Rachel Kalidass,
Thembinkosi Bonakele,
Nomvuyo Mhlakaza,
Bongani Khumalo,
Mbulaheni Obert Maguvhe,
Krish Naidoo,
Aaron Tshidzumba and
Hope Zinde.
It's utterly deplorable that although Afrikaans is the third biggest language in South Africa, just as with previous boards, the government couldn't see it fit to include even one Afrikaans speaking person on the SABC board and the SABC has not even a single Afrikaans person representing this entire section of the population.
It's a scandal and a public shame in its own that noted media and broadcasting experts - people who have also devoted time and energy to public broadcasting - such as professor
William Gumede and the public broadcasting activist
Kate Skinner who were nominated can't make the final SABC board member list.
The SABC board does now have a SABC board member with a disability and in a sense "the blind leading the blind": professor
Obert Maguvhe, a blind candidate will now become a SABC board member.
