Cyril Ramaphosa had months to flag SABC board shortlist concerns
Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) said that any concerns about the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) shortlisted candidates should have been raised five months ago before the list was compiled, and not after the president received it.
The SABC did not have a board to oversee any operations since October 2022, and new appointments saw lengthy delays into the new year.
A list of 15 candidates was sent to President Cyril Ramaphosa for approval in December, but the process was delayed after he said he first needed some clarity from Parliament.
The media watchdog has since taken Ramaphosa to the Constitutional Court, in order to compel him to stop delaying the implementation of the new board.
“We don’t believe that the president needs to do anything besides appoint the 12, which is why we have gone to the Constitutional Court,” said MMA director William Bird.
“The president is saying that he needs some kind of clarity from the National Assembly and now this is being used in order to try and review that list of original 12, and there seems to be some particular emphasis on Phatiswa Magopeni’s position.”
Bird said that the debate surrounding the candidacy of Magopeni is irrelevant at this stage.
“There’s an argument that she’s not a fit and proper person to be on the SABC board. Whether or not there’s any legitimacy to that argument in our view [it] is not of any relevance at this point.
“Had they wanted to raise those issues, they should have raised them at the appropriate time when CVs were up. You know, her CV was there.”
-EWN
In other news – Heartbroken Sni Mhlongo picking up the pieces after being cheated on by Zamani Mbatha
South African actor Zamani Mbatha‘s ex-girlfriend Snikiwe “Sni” Mhlongo is trying to come to terms with Zamani’s betrayal after he allegedly cheated on her with another girl.
The YouTuber and social media influencer took to Instagram to open up about how she is coping following the cheating scandal. She posted a heartbreaking Instagram story in which she suggested that she was dying. As she reflected on the past few days, she said she was trying to pick up the pieces and thanked everyone for their love and kind messages since she exposed Zamani’s cheating. Learn More
