DA welcomes long-overdue appointment of SABC Board

18 April 2023

After 185 days without a Board of Directors, the President finally gave in to the pressure of the Democratic Alliance, Parliament and civil society and appointed the 12-member non-executive SABC Board after deliberately delaying the appointment for as long as he could.

Parliament voted and agreed unanimously to the list of candidates on 6 December 2022, and the President continued to delay the process for a further 133 days without any legal entitlement to do so.

It is because of this delay that he currently finds himself front and centre of a Constitutional Court application by civil society for failing to perform his Constitutional duties.

The whole country knows that the delay was caused by the President and former Minister's dislike of a single candidate, Phathiswa Magopeni.

As a result, the DA particularly welcomes her appointment. We trust she will do an exemplary job after her shoddy treatment by the ANC.

No doubt, many of those higher up in the ANC will be licking their wounds this afternoon.

The Board has a massive mountain to climb, with debts increasing exponentially, and the contracts of the CEO, COO and CFO due to expire in just over a month. The DA wishes them luck in their future endeavours, and hopes they manage to turn this loss-leader into the public broadcaster it is supposed to be.

Issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard, DA Shadow Minister of Communications, 18 April 2023