ANC ’notes’ no confidence in SABC board
The much publicised and long anticipated debate on the motion turned into a damp squib when the communications committee merely presented its own report and its own motion of no confidence in the SABC board to the National Assembly to be “noted”.
Some members of the board were in the public gallery to listen to the proceedings.
All opposition parties, however, objected unanimously to even the “noting” procedure, arguing that the SABC had become caught up in the power struggle between factions in the ruling party.
They were concerned that even agreeing to the noting of the committee report could be interpreted as its acceptance by the house.
Democratic Alliance (DA) communications spokeswoman Dene Smuts submitted that the watered down procedure represented a “humiliating defeat” for the ANC.
DA MP Mike Ellis said it was very unusual for a committee report to be simply noted by the National Assembly.
ANC caucus spokesman Khotso Khumalo denied, however, that the ANC had been defeated. He said if the National Assembly had adopted a motion of no confidence in the SABC board, then ANC chief whip Nkosinathi Mthethwa would have been obliged to submit a separate resolution calling for the dissolution of the board.
But this would have been beyond the powers of Parliament, putting the institution on a collision course with the president, who has the power to appoint and remove board members.
ANC MP Lumka Yengeni, though, made no bones about the party’s view.
“If we had the legislative power to fire or dissolve the board, today it would only be existing in the history books,” she said after referring to what she called its failures.
Yengeni urged SABC chairwoman Kanyisiwe Mkonza and other board members to do the “honourable thing” and resign so the committee could begin afresh a new selection process.
Communications committee chairman Ismail Vadi justified the committee’s decision to adopt a no-confidence vote on the grounds the relationship of trust between the board and management had broken down.
It had become dysfunctional.
Vadi stressed it was the duty of the committee to exercise its oversight role.
He called on the National Assembly to express its serious concern at the failure and inability of the board to perform its functions.
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