Another SABC board member resigns

A third member of the SABC board has reportedly resigned following reports of two other resignations this week.

Krish Naidoo, the third board member to step down, confirmed to SABC news that he had resigned from the public broadcaster’s board.

Krish Naidoo confirms to #sabcnews that he has resigned from the public broadcaster's board. Two other board members who are also said to have resigned, deputy chairperson Khanyisile Kweyama and John Mattison, are keeping mum #safmsunrise pic.twitter.com/FbPjuiGyDN

— SABC News Radio (@SABCNews_Radio) December 6, 2018

In a statement on Tuesday, the DA said it could confirm two SABC board members, John Mattison and Khanyisile Kweyama, have resigned.

According to an EWN report on Wednesday, Naidoo’s resignation stems from a breakdown in relations between the board and newly appointed Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams who is reportedly trying to prevent the broadcaster from going through with retrenchments.

The SABC just over a month ago announced that due to its financial woes, it envisaged that 981 employees and 1200 freelancers may possibly be retrenched as a result of the restructuring, across all the business units and operations of the broadcaster.

Ndabeni-Abrahams is battling the board over the retrenchments of permanent and freelance staff at the public broadcaster.

Mattison’s reasons for stepping are reported to be because the board refuses to suspend the retrenchments.

Meanwhile, the DA’s Phumzile Van Damme earlier this week accused the ANC of meddling in SABC board “chaos”, alleging that the DA had been reliably informed that Naidoo had been asked to resign from the board by Luthuli House, the governing party’s headquarters.

Van Damme said the DA was aware of an allegation that the ANC was attempting to collapse the SABC board by rendering it inquorate and therefore unable to make any legally binding decisions.

“It is election season, and the ANC does not want an independent board. The SABC is key in communicating the ANC’s ‘good story’ and an independent board that won’t take instructions, as we saw this weekend with the new minister, would be most undesirable for the ANC,” Van Damme said.

READ MORE: DA accuses ANC of meddling in SABC board ‘chaos’

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