SABC board: Qunta vs Ginwala

Is Frene Ginwala all that stands between Christine Qunta and the chair of the SABC? That is the question some members of Parliament’s portfolio committee on communications are asking as they prepare to interview 37 candidates short-listed for the board of the public broadcaster.

Qunta, who is deputy chairperson, is among eight current board members on the shortlist and ANC members of the committee say she will almost certainly make it on to the final list of 12 that is expected to go to President Thabo Mbeki for approval in late September.

If that happens, an ANC MP told the Mail & Guardian, she will be a strong contender for the top job and is unlikely to be demoted to an ordinary board position.

But Ginwala, who has support of the ANC and opposition parties, despite her position on the ANC’s national executive committee, is seen by some in the ruling party’s parliamentary caucus as the one candidate whose seniority is such that she could plausibly be advanced as an alternative.

‘If she were to run the SABC the way she ran Parliament, she would really shake that place up,” an MP familiar with the debate within the ANC’s communications study group said.

Even if Eddie Funde remains chairperson and Qunta keeps her current job, Ginwala would act as an effective counterweight, the source said.

Both women have legal backgrounds and both are seen as tough and outspoken, but they come from different political cultures.

Qunta is perhaps the current board’s most outspoken Africanist and a prominent Mbeki supporter. In April she used her newspaper column to react to claims that the independence of the broadcaster is being eroded by blaming ‘a small group of angry white men and their surrogates” who, she said, were waging campaigns to ‘complete their current dominance of the intellectual space in this country”.

Qunta, with Funde, is seen as a key advocate of more ‘African” values in drama programming, an agenda that is interpreted by some production companies as an unwillingness to risk controversy, or to portray negative aspects of South African life.

Qunta’s defence of Aids denialist and vitamin salesperson Matthias Rath and of Mbeki’s approach to HIV/Aids and Zimbabwe also has been controversial.

Ginwala, in contrast, is said to have fallen out with Mbeki after she lost her position as speaker of the National Assembly following the April 2004 election.

In that job she was seen by MPs on both sides of the house as tough-minded and independent, earning criticism and praise in equal measure.

She was criticised about Parliament’s handling of the investigation of allegations of corruption in the arms deal. Opposition parties and some ANC MPs felt she had helped to prevent a full ventilation of the issues uncovered by the joint investigation team which examined the deal.

But others in the ANC caucus were furious that she had allowed the probe to go too far and had condoned action against the ANC’s powerful chief whip Tony Yengeni for attempting to cover up the discount he received on his Mercedes 4×4 from a bidder in the arms deal.

‘She went too far, she was too high-handed. If she had handled it differently, she would still have a job,” said one person who was privy to the internal battles of that period.

Ginwala also made herself unpopular among some ANC MPs, including powerful members of the caucus, by supporting then parliamentary finance chief Harry Charlton in the aggressive pursuit of MPs who benefited from the fraudulent claims in the Travelgate scandal.

The M&G understands that she was initially reluctant to accept nomination to the board on the grounds that it was inappropriate for a serving officer bearer in a political party to oversee an independent public broadcaster. She is said to have changed her mind when allegations emerged that SABC legal chief Mafika Sihlali had been overpaid by R1,8-million for legal work for the broadcaster.

Qunta, in contrast, downplayed the investigation into Sihlali, saying ‘at any big organisation there will be people who engage in acts — that amount to corruption and fraud”.

The board is investigating who leaked a forensic report on Sihlali’s conduct. ‘You cannot claim to have whistle-blower status if you do something out of malice,” Qunta said.

The real battle is on

The M&G understands that all eight of the current board members who were nominated to remain on the board made it on to the committee’s 37-strong shortlist. This was despite general agreement in the committee that they should not automatically get interviews.

Of the eight, Ashwin Trikamjee and Alison Gilwald have unanimous support.

Trikamjee has been increasingly prominent since the SABC lost the rights to PSL football to SuperSport.

He has played a central role in negotiations to ensure that the SABC is still able to broadcast important games and staunchly defended the broadcaster’s contractual position in Parliament this week.

Fadila Lagadien, who is partially paralysed, also has some support in the ANC study group as an advocate for the disabled.

Eddie Funde and Cecil Msomi are far more controversial, even within the ANC. Both serve on the board’s powerful news subcommittee and are seen widely as sharing responsiblity for its limp response to the findings of a Zwelakhe Sisulu-led inquiry into the blacklisting of political commentators.

Msomi has been at the centre of allegations that he has multiple conflicts of interest arising from his role as a spokesperson for the KwaZulu-Natal government and his involvement in a communications company that does government work.

There are also some very strong new candidates now on the shortlist:

There was a good deal of agreement between political parties on the committee this week as the original list of more than 140 names was whittled down, but the real battle will now commence.