DA to push for public participation in SABC board interviews

14 August 2017

Tomorrow, Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications begins shortlisting candidates to be interviewed to serve on the permanent board of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

In order to ensure that Parliament discharges of its duty to select individuals to serve on the board in line with the requirements of the Broadcasting Act, the DA will push that the process be conducted with openness, transparency, and most importantly, with public participation.

As such, we will request that all CVs of shortlisted candidates are published on Parliament’s website to allow the public, civil society and interested parties the opportunity to submit comments on each shortlisted candidate.

The shortlisting of the 363 candidates is set to commence ‪at 09:30 am in Committee Room E249, in the National Assembly Building at Parliament.

The DA encourages South African citizens to participate in this process, and join as Parliament embark on finding the best possible candidates for the permanent board of the public broadcaster.

We intend on carefully considering each application to ensure that the best candidates are selected to continue the work of steering the SABC from the red to the black.

This is also in line with the recommendation of the SABC Inquiry that: “The Committee further recommends that the appointment of the new Board should be a transparent and public process, and that all shortlisted candidates should be subjected to vetting by the SSA.”

The DA looks forward to beginning the work of appointing an excellent, qualified, committed, non-partisan board to ensure that an SABC riddled with corruption, financial mismanagement and partisanship never happens again.

Issued by Phumzile Van Damme, DA Shadow Minister of Communications, 14 August 2017