‘Stalling’ Zuma faces legal action over SABC board
THE row over the apparent delays by President Jacob Zuma to appoint an SABC board has escalated into legal action. Yesterday, two organisations, the Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) and SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition (SOS), filed a joint urgent application in the high court in Joburg, demanding that Zuma appoint a permanent SABC board within 48 hours.
Zuma is cited as the first respondent in the court papers, while Communications Minister Ayanda Dlodlo and the SABC are cited as the second and third respondents, respectively.
The rest of the respondents are the EFF, who last week wrote to Zuma threatening legal action, as well as the members of the now-defunct interim board.
“It is declared that the president’s failure to appoint and/or undue delay in appointing the fifth to sixth respondents (interim board) as non-executive members of the SABC board is unlawful and unconstitutional,” MMA and SOS argue in their court papers.
In their founding affidavits, the two organisations detailed their correspondence to Zuma, raising their concerns over the apparent delays regarding the appointment of a board. MMA first wrote on October 5 after the interim board’s term on September 26 and following Parliament’s decision three weeks earlier recommending the interim board be made permanent.
When Zuma did not respond, the MMA wrote another letter, expressing deep concern over his “failure to formally comply (and) appoint the candidates sent to you”.
The Saturday Star reported last week that Zuma was stalling partly because he did not trust the interim board chairperson, Khanyisile Kweyama, and deputy chair Mathatha Tsedu.
While Zuma might still be mulling over which names to drop from the interim board, MMA said the constitution makes it clear that “the president is to appoint the 12 non-executive members ‘on the advice of the National Assembly’.
“That means that, as a matter of law, the president has no discretion regarding whether to appoint board members identified by the National Assembly. The only role for the president is to determine the chair and deputy from the board members identified by the National Assembly. This makes the delay in appointment, with respect, simply inexplicable.”
SOS’s Dudutsang Makuse con- curred: “The president has no discretion or power to refuse to appoint the persons identified by the National Assembly or to delay doing so. There’s no basis in law for the president’s refusal to appoint the selected non-executive members, or for his delay. Accordingly, there can be no lawful justification for the president’s inaction.”
He added that Zuma’s conduct should be declared unlawful and irrational.
The organisations expressed fears that, without a board, the cashstrapped public broadcaster might slide into a further crisis.
In his response, through his legal unit, Zuma said he was considering the matter. He again wrote to the MMA on Monday, saying the Department of Communications “has collated” and submitted all the necessary information on October 6 to enable him to finalise the appointments of the board “as soon as possible”.
But this did little to appease MMA. “We regret that your letter compounds the unlawful delay that has already occurred and fails to provide any meaningful indication as to when such appointments will be made.”
The two bodies have also included in their court papers former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s When Ethics and Governance Fails report on the SABC and the letter by the so-called SABC 8 in which they raised concern about the possibility of a recapture of the public broadcaster.
Makuse said in the founding affidavit that the application was brought “against the backdrop of the spate of controversies concerning the governance of the SABC. For at least the past decade, the SABC has been beset by chronic problems of weak gover nance, mismanagement and political interference… the SABC’s financial state is calamitous,” he said, citing the latest auditor-general’s report which found it had reported a staggering R1.1 billion loss in the past financial year.
The two organisations have given Zuma staggered deadlines to respond to their legal challenge. Should he not appoint the SABC board by Monday, he will have to file notice of intention to oppose their application by 5pm, and file his answering affidavit by Tuesday.