I recognise your rights, hon Deputy Speaker. I had hoped to hear the ANC on the subject because I think the central subject or point that we wish to make here is that this entire episode has demonstrated that there is in fact a need for a mechanism to follow up incidents such as the one that has just occurred.
When Ms Vos's motion was tabled on September 20th the points available by way of background evidence were: Her interview during which she said she did not know who Mr Du Plooy was; and secondly, the sterling work of the Sunday Times who spotted Mr Louis Du Plooy of the Office of the Ministry in the Presidency, traced the fax number of the nomination and spoke to Mr Du Plooy who confirmed he had nominated her.
The evidence now available includes the letter that Ms Serobe wrote to the Speaker and which was very properly published in the ATCs of 15th November. We now have the reported words of Mr Du Plooy but we also have now the verbatim signed words of Ms Serobe, that, to use her own her own words:
I was contacted telephonically by Mr Louis Du Plooy of the Office of the Presidency and so forth, as you have heard. According to the transcript of our interview and our proceedings the Chairperson asked her whether Mr Du Plooy was in any organisation or was just an independent person, and Ms Serobe said as you have heard "I actually don't know. I never found out who that is". However, in her letter she says:
Had the chairman asked me if I know Mr Louis Du Plooy of the Office of the Presidency, I would have confirmed yes as I had no need to conceal the fact.
Madam, what we need to convey is that persons who appear before parliamentary committees must understand that we act in good faith here and that they may not mislead us. And they may certainly not to lie to us. You do not come here to play games.
It is ironic that it is the concern of myself and the hon Mr Khumalo in particular, and one of the reasons I look forward to hearing him now. Our concern was to explore conflicts of interest and to warn her that the SABC is contested terrain. I asked her considering her, part-ownership of Telkom together with Mr Smuts Ngonyama and the Elephant Consortium, about her possible conflict of media which is entering the same terrain.
Mr Khumalo in particular, prophetically as it turns out, described how, I quote: "... respectable, dignified people sometimes they leave the Board of the SABC in tatters, their images in shambles".
Now, we have in fact the mother of all conflicts of interests on our hands because the Ministry in the Presidency is part of the body that must appoint independent institutions like the SABC, which are supposed to be selected strictly by Parliament under our law. Parliament is given the power of selection and the public has the right to nominate so that the executive from which the SABC must be statutorily independent is precisely not empowered to select the board.
That is why it constitutes subversion of the selection process when the Presidency - the very formal appointing body that signs our choice into office at the end of the process - intrudes on the nomination process in the first place.
What were Mr Du Plooy and Prof Anver Salojee, by the way, doing, having sight of the nominations, when the MPs did not even seen them, and faxing the nominations from the Union Buildings? Just in case hon members, you thought Mr Du Plooy was an unguided missile, we also received a nomination for another prominent Wiphold lady, Louisa Mojela, from Prof Anver Salojee of 114 Graskop Road, Waterkloof Heights, from the ubiquitious fax number 012 300 5779. If any one does not know to whom Prof Salojee advises and reports, try the fax number. It belongs to the Union Buildings.
Can we please dispense now with the pretence that the public servants are exercising their constitutional rights in acting as purported private citizens when they try to buy the Sunday Times or to influence the composition of the SABC Board? Hon members any Minister or any President can then do what is clearly outside his powers by telling his public servants to act and then defending their personal private right to do what he cannot. It is self-evident.
In our system the political head is the accountable person and his departmental staff act on his or her instruction or with his or her approval only. Mr du Plooy is not under fire here, he is a public servant. I would have preferred not to have to deal with a matter like this with Ms Serobe who is the civilian, but she has I regret misled us and I think we lack a proper mechanism to deal with situations like this. Thank you.