Hon colleagues, I live in hope that one day the ANC will recognise that there are many appropriately skilled and committed South Africans who can contribute ideas, experience and enthusiasm to help our government entities fulfil their mandates.
Once again the Portfolio Committee on Communications has rejected the best candidate for the vacancy on the MDDA board in favour of an ANC activist who had no fresh ideas to offer on how, for example, community media can become self-sustaining and survive in economically marginal communities. His only idea was to ask the Treasury for more money. The ANC members of the committee refused to enter into discussion on the merits or demerits of their choice or that proposed by the DA. They came to the interview and deliberation process with their choice cast in concrete. The candidate chosen by the DA had extensive experience in small mainstream and new media platforms. He posited ideas, for example, of how to promote financial sustainability and to improve and control printing costs. His ideas were practical and borne of experience that stretch back to his years as an antiapartheid student activist to senior management in mainstream media. But he was rejected in favour of the candidate whose main attributes on his CV were his ANC credentials and experience in local government public relations.
Many times during the past year I have stood before this House to alert hon members that our failure to appoint the best, able and most suitably qualified candidates to the boards of state entities condemns them to perpetual underperformance if not failure. If this practice continues, we might as well change the wording of our advertisement for people to step forward to say, only ANC cadres need apply. [Applause.]