10 June 2009
The South African Communist Party notes that the nine remaining members of the SABC Board are resisting efforts by South Africa’s public representatives to allow them a dignified exit rather than facing dismissal.
We recall that the board was appointed under controversial circumstances in the hours after the democratic reassertion by members of the African National Congress at Polokwane, and after covert intervention in, by supporters of the 1996 Class Project then in government, the Parliamentary process of appointing the board.
The current board was thus born with an indelible stain on its legitimacy and on its ability to represent the interests of all South Africans – rather than the middle and capitalists classes from which its members are drawn.
The past 18 months have demonstrated that the 12 members of the board are also, collectively, incapable for managing and maintaining the corporate governance required of a public institution.
Not only have they allowed its news bulletins to serve as partisan, sectarian propaganda platforms for individuals to promote their personal political agendas, but they have in just one-and-a-half year taken the SABC from modest profitability to financial crisis, with R2-billion blown and a further R200-million disappearing every month.
It is clear from public statements that the nine remaining board members want to claim they were not responsible for the loses, and to blame individuals on the board – among them ex-chairperson Khanyi Mkonza.
If that is true, why have they allowed her to remain on the board?
And why did they not act sooner to rein in her unaccountable expenditure.
As members of the board they are, by law, by standard corporate governance practice and by the finding of the Johannesburg High Court, collectively responsible for the actions of the board and for the performance of the SABC.
Their sudden concern for their fiduciary responsibility smacks of opportunism and self-interest – the same opportunism and self-interest which allowed them to accept the improper interference in Parliamentary process through which they were appointed.
They have demonstrated that they are neither competent to oversee a public institution, nor able to recognise and act in the public interest.
In their own interests, in the interests of the SABC and of all South Africans, they should resign immediately and clear the way for appointment of a board untainted by political interference and operational incompetence.
If they do not go voluntarily, our government and our parliament will have no choice but to use the legislative process to remove them.
Under those circumstances, it is possible – indeed likely – that an inquiry into their performance will be even more damaging to the individual board members than the last 18 months have been to their individual and collective reputations and public standing.
Already it is questionable whether individuals who have contributed so directly to the destruction of a national asset are fit and proper persons to serve on any structure which has public interest as its core principle, or to work directly or indirectly in the public sector sphere.
We therefore urge the nine remaining board members to resign now, before they further embarrass themselves and their country.
Issued by the SACP
Contact
Malesela Maleka
SACP Spokesperson – 082 226 1802