Jacquie Golding-Duffy scrutinises the credentials of the newly appointed South African Broadcasting Corporation board members
THE appointment of members to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board has been finalised, with President Nelson Mandela rubberstamping 16 of the 21 names submitted. But only five of the successful candidates seem to have specialist media experience, while the rest of the candidates, including the new chair, boast degrees ranging from medicine and social work to theology.
The new chair, Professor Paulus Zulu (55), has a diploma in Diagnostic Radiography, a masters degree in Social Science and a doctorate.
Zulu, who replaces Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, is vice-principal at the University of Natal in Durban and was nominated by John Vollmink, vice-principal at the University of Durban- Westville.
In his curriculum vitae, Zulu says he was an assistant personal officer at Unilever, a consumer products group, and in the early Eighties he became a market research executive at the company.
Of the 16 new board members, five candidates will be serving for the second time. They are Brigalia Hlophe Bam, who is now vice- chair; Anna Boshoff, the only surviving Afrikaans-speaking member out of seven who were on the old board; Sheila Sisulu; Allister Sparks and Professor Jabulani Thembela.
Bam, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), has been heavily involved in women’s issues throughout her career. She joined the World Council of Churches in 1967 and was once national director for the Young Women’s Christian Association.
Born in former homeland Transkei, Bam is a qualified social worker with post-graduate studies completed at the University of Chicago. She has been a teacher, social worker and health educator and has worked on several women’s projects while abroad.
Bam, who was nominated by the World Council of Churches, also serves on several other boards including the Kagiso Trust and the Standard Bank advisory committee.
She is held in high esteem by her colleagues who applaud her quick grasp of and insight into media issues, despite her lack of direct media experience.
The 10 members who are first-time servers on the SABC board, excluding the chair, are:
* Francois Beukman, a lawyer who has some specialist experience, having served on several task groups including the interdepartmental task group on language and cultural policy. A senior constitutional planner, he was nominated by the current adviser to the National Party, Advocate HJ Gaum.
* Lyndall Campher, media group director at Hunt Lascaris. She has extensive experience in media planning and advertising in print and broadcasting.
* Mandla Langa, former convener of the Task Group on Government Communications (Comtask).
* Dr Paul Davis, who has a long association with the medical profession including being chairman of the Academy of Emergency and Critical Care.
* Dr Frederick Kok, executive director of Die Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuurvereeniging (Afrikaans Language and Cultural Association) was nominated by the organisaton as he, among other things, studied abroad, allowing for a world view.
* Professor Mbulelo Mzamane, author and controversial vice-chancellor of Fort Hare University.
* Litha Nyhonyha, executive director of Thebe Investments
* Dr William Rowland, executive director of the Association for the Blind.
* Masepeke Sekhukhuni, producer, director and documentary film-maker with a BA Communications and Sociology degree from the University of Middlesex.
* Reverend Gabriel Setiloane, who has worked as a teacher at mission schools since the early Forties, completing his BA degree in 1947. He was ordained in the mid-Fifites and studied at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.