Communications minister Dina Pule has put her foot down over the behaviour of the SABC’s board of directors, saying she was concerned about the “latest breaches of corporate governance that are playing themselves out in public”
Pule met members of the board of the pfacublic broadcaster yesterday morning following an unseemly and public fallout over the firing – or not – of acting COO, Hlaudi Motsoeneng that has played out in the South African media. Motsoeneng was fired last week at a special meeting of the board, held in Cape Town.
But chairman Dr Ben Ngubane reinstated the controversial acting COO, whose lack of a matric and penchant for stifling political debate on SABC channels has earned him the reputation of being ‘Zuma’s enforcer’ at the public broadcaster. The board then moved against Ngubane’s decision, saying it went against the legal processes of the board, which legitimately fired him.
Pule has now stepped in, and has written a letter to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications asking them to urgently look into the fitness of the SABC Board to remain in office.
“The South African public deserves a public broadcaster that informs, educates and entertains them. I have asked Parliament, as the institution that interviews the board members, to advise if they believe this board is helping the government to deliver on its mandate to give South Africans access to quality public broadcasting, which is their human right,” she said in a statement.
Pule said “a stable SABC is crucial in the country’s efforts to deliver Digital Terrestrial Television successfully”.
