MPs undertake to move with speed to fill SABC board vacancies

7th December 2018 By: African News Agency

 MPs undertake to move with speed to fill SABC board vacancies

Parliament's communications portfolio committee on Friday said it would move with speed to try and fill all eight vacancies on the board of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) following four resignations this week.

In a statement, the committee confirmed National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete had received a letter from President Cyril Ramaphosa saying he had accepted the resignations of deputy board chairperson Khanyisile Kweyama as well as board members Krish Naidoo, John Mattison and Mathatha Tsedu.

"The committee is concerned about the fact that not only do the resignations come at a time when it was in a process of filling the other four vacancies but also they left the remaining board without a quorum," committee chairperson Hlengiwe Mkhize said.

"Therefore, it urged the executive management to steer the public broadcaster in the best interest of the country and in accordance with legislation while the committee moves with speed to fill all the eight vacancies."

Mkhize said the exit interviews should be held with the four board members who resigned this week to ascertain the "real motive" behind them leaving.

The broadcaster is currently technically insolvent and is facing resistance to plans to retrench at least 2 000 staffers to cut escalating costs and stay afloat. Following periods of wasteful expenditure and ineffective boards, it owes service providers hundreds of millions of rand.