The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Thursday rejected the proposed shortlist of candidates to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board.
An emergency resolution was brought before the union body’s central committee in Kempton Park, Gauteng, by the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, the Communications Workers’ Union and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union.
They rejected the proposed candidates as they were ”narrowly based, partisan and completely inadequate to meet the requirement of a public broadcaster”.
Cosatu adopted a resolution to seek an immediate review of the shortlist and to call for the inclusion of working-class representatives.
”Cosatu further called for the direct representation of labour on the SABC board to ensure that the voice of the working class is fully and properly represented,” the resolution read.
The names submitted to President Thabo Mbeki were not representative of ”a broad cross-section” of South Africans.
”There is a clear preponderance of figures from the world of BEE [black economic empowerment] business, while there are none from the trade unions and the African National Congress’s alliance partners and wider civil society,” Cosatu noted.
Despite loud and bitter protests from the opposition, the National Assembly last week approved the slate of candidates for the SABC board as proposed by the communications portfolio committee.
On the list was Nadia Bulbulia, Alison Gilwald, Desmond Golding, Bheki Khumalo, Fadila Lagadien, Andile Mbeki, Khanyisile Mkhonza, Christine Qunta, Gloria Serobe, Pansy Tlakula, Ashwin Trikamjee and Peter Vundla. Six are returning members of the old board and six are new nominations.
Opposition parties argued last week that by railroading its own list of candidates through, the ANC was providing the political muscle demanded by the party headquarters at Luthuli House in Johannesburg.
The ANC, however, on Monday dismissed as ”mischievous and fanciful” suggestions that it interfered in the selection process after the Sunday Times reported that ANC headquarters had ordered the party’s MPs to accept the list of board appointees.
Sue Vos of the Inkatha Freedom Party described the process as ”toxic and cynical political manipulation”. She said: ”Good candidates willing to serve were ruthlessly ignored. There was no ubuntu in that committee at all.”
For the Democratic Alliance, Dene Smuts objected to the presence of Serobe on the list, as she had conflicts of interest through her role as the driving force of a cellphone consortium. But Smuts was especially upset by the inclusion of Christine Qunta.
”She’s the long-standing Africanist associate of our president,” Smuts said. ”We cannot support her. We have never supported the racial prism through which she views all criticism — criticism of the president, criticism of corruption against black South Africans covered in the general media and now, upon our questioning, all criticism of the SABC.”
Under two hours of questioning by the committee, Qunta had confirmed that all criticism of the SABC by the commercial media had a racial bias, Smuts said. ”Further she confirmed … her confidence in the man we are convinced is the source of much of the trouble at the SABC, the news head, Mr Snuki Zikalala.” — Sapa, I-Net Bridge