Chairperson, hon Minister, unlike the budgets of a number of other governments, which are allocated in order for the departments in question to spend their allocation on their own direct service delivery mandates, the Budget Vote under consideration today is essentially a transfer vote.
This is because, of the R2 billion estimated budget which the Department of Communications is seeking to have approved by this House, R1,6 billion, or 76,5%, is earmarked for the department's programme 4: information and communications technology enterprise development, which facilitates transfers and subsidies to the six state entities and state-owned enterprises that fall under the remit of the department. These include the SA Broadcasting Corporation, SA Post Office, Sentech; and the independent regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa.
This puts the Minister, as the shareholder of these public entities, in the unique position of having no role to play in their day-to-day management, while at the same time overseeing the transfer to them of over R1,5 billion in public money.
While this may seem like a conundrum for the department, the legislation that governs these entities in fact provides for significant audit, risk, compliance and financial management oversight on the part of the Minister. This is perfectly appropriate to his role as a majority shareholder on behalf of the South African government. It does not necessitate, as the hon Minister and Director-General Mamodupi Mohlala are in the process of trying to enforce, the creation of new loopholes in these laws to enable ministerial intervention where it is inappropriate and unnecessary.
There has been some to-ing and fro-ing over the past year between the DA and the Minister of Communications over the issue of whether the Minister has, in drafting certain pieces of legislation and in issuing certain ministerial policy directives, been attempting to micromanage the communications entities.
Time and again we heard from the Minister that he is not seeking to exercise greater influence or control over the SABC or the independent regulator. Yet the actions of the department tell a different story.
The Public Service Broadcasting Bill, which was gazetted by the Department of Communications late last year, is a case in point. The proposed legislation, whose principal intention is to make the Minister rather than Parliament and the SABC board the accountability authority of the broadcaster, seeks to confer upon the Minister wide-ranging powers to intervene in the functioning of the SABC, in addition to its controversial proposal of levying a 1% personal income tax on working South Africans to fund the SABC.
While the DA appreciates that the proposed legislation arises in some measure out of the Minister's concern about the recent financial and management crisis faced by the SABC, we nevertheless believe that the SABC's problems are being used by the ANC government as a fig leaf to justify state interference in the functioning of the public broadcaster, which is supposed to be the pride and the voice of all South Africans, not just those who support the governing party.
The Bill spells out clearly the areas in which greater ministerial control is envisaged and includes clauses granting the Minister greater control over the SABC's finances. Elsewhere in the Bill, section 37, for example, the Minister is allowed to, and I quote:
... instruct the board to take any actions specified by the Minister if the corporation is in financial difficulty, unable to perform its functions effectively or fails to comply with any law.
Effectively, this allows the Minister to usurp the board's authority and independence. In addition, the proposed charter of the corporation contains the startling provision that the board may only appoint the group chief executive officer, CEO, chief financial officer, CFO, and their equivalents after consultation with the Minister. This would have the effect of granting the Minister control over the appointment of senior management of the SABC.
Minister Nyanda and the director-general, DG, have argued that there is nothing untoward about these provisions and that they afford the Minister more leeway to oversee the public broadcaster while also ensuring that he or she can intervene in times of a crisis.
This assertion is not only contradictory to the position of the Minister of Public Enterprises, Barbara Hogan, who has repeatedly warned state-owned enterprises to remain accountable to their boards and not their Ministers, but its folly is most clearly demonstrated by a recent appointment by the Minister to a state entity whose legislation grants the Minister the very power to appoint the boards and nonexecutive directors which he seeks to be granted in respect of the SABC.
In the 2009-10 financial year, the national signal distributor, Sentech, incurred a loss of R123 million, following unconfirmed allegations of financial mismanagement and as a result of discontinued business operations which included MyWireless, BizNet and Very Small Aperture Terminal, VSAT. Surprisingly, this amount, which represent a R24 million increase in its net losses from 2008-09, was not disclosed to the Department of Communications by Sentech in its corporate plan.
One would have expected that, given the massive financial crisis in which Sentech now finds itself, the Minister would be sure to appoint to its new board only members who were fit for the purpose of turning around this crucial state entity upon whose infrastructure broadcast media producers all over the country are so heavily reliant, in particular considering South Africa's impending switch-over from analogue to digital terrestrial television, DTT.
Yet Zanele Hlatshwayo, the disgraced former mayor of Msunduzi Municipality in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, has been appointed by the Minister not only as a member but as a director of Sentech's board of directors. Formerly a nurse and a teacher, Ms Hlatshwayo has no technical expertise in the field of communications and signal distribution to recommend her to the post.
As the mayor of Pietermaritzburg, Ms Hlatshwayo presided over the mismanagement of the city on a grand scale, to the extent that she left the city reportedly bankrupt and indebted to the tune of R115 million. She was ultimately fired, along with the entire ANC council executive, by the ANC leadership in KwaZulu-Natal. This was not long ago. The crisis in the city came to a head just three weeks ago when municipal services in Pietermaritzburg were brought to a standstill because of the massive financial and management problems in the municipality.
Leaked findings of the ministerial task team review, which were kept under such lock and key that not even this committee has been allowed sight of them, indicated that Sentech was in a freefall.
Yet the ANC, instead of recognising the urgency of the situation by appointing a board which is fit for the purpose of turning it around, chooses to redeploy a failed cadre with no industry or management experience. They chose someone who mismanaged the last mandate she was given into bankruptcy and who was fired for her troubles.
This is what comes of ministerial prerogative in crucial appointments such as this. The needs of the party, the ANC, override the responsibility of the state to deliver efficient and effective services to the people of South Africa, as well as to manage their finance. No transparent public process would have placed such a wasteful candidate on a shortlist, much less elevated her to the position of board director. [Time expired.] [Applause.]