Filling two vacancies on SABC Board: postponed due to delays in vetting

Meeting report

The Chairperson briefly summarised where the Subcommittee was regarding the two vacancies for the benefit of the DA’s Ms P Van Damme, who had replaced Mr Davies on the subcommittee.

Ms Van Damme (DA) asked where the process of the three other unlawful removals or resignation of board members was.

The Chairperson replied that the Subcommittee was only dealing with what had been given to it and no other matter.

The Subcommittee debated a bit further, with the Chairperson finally ruling that the Subcommittee would deal with the business on the agenda. She asked the stand-in secretary to brief the Subcommittee on the status of the process of the short listed candidates.

Ms S Bowers, Procedural advisor, stand-in secretary, informed the Subcommittee that the process of the two vacancies was that the vetting of the two candidates had been initiated and was in progress. Regarding the qualifications check; the Human Resources (HR) department of Parliament had initiated the checks but had been delayed due to parliamentary staff protests.

Mr R Tseli (ANC) asked whether there was an indication of timeframes for completion of the vetting and qualification check.

Ms Bowers said the vetting generally took longer but qualifications check depended on submission of documentation by candidates.

Mr Tseli said the Subcommittee would appeal to Parliament to rush the work without compromising the quality of the work as it was long outstanding.

The Chairperson reported that the subcommittee would want to inform the parliamentary management present that the State Security Agency (SSA) had been dragging its feet last time and doing shoddy work. The Subcommittee would appreciate if it could follow those processes with urgency?

She advised that the subcommittee should adjourn the meeting.

Ms Van Damme said if the matter of the board vacancies had taken a year without a clear resolution, it would perhaps be best to engage the Minister of SSA on the speeding up of the process so that the Subcommittee would be able to get commitments from SSA and it could also set deadlines for itself as to when the filling of the vacancies would be completed.

The Chairperson responded that indeed the Subcommittee would engage SSA however; she did not believe the process could be completed by the end of 2015 due to the ongoing staff protests. Moreover the Subcommittee could process the matter early in 2016.

The meeting was then adjourned.