ATC241119: Report of the Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Culture in response to a letter dated 20 October 2024 from the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture. Mr G McKenzie, noting his rejection of the Pan South African Language Board shortlist, Dated 19 November 2024

Sport, Arts and Culture

Report of the Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Culture in response to a letter dated 20 October 2024 from the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture. Mr G McKenzie, noting his rejection of the Pan South African Language Board shortlist, Dated 19 November 2024.

 

1.Purpose

1. 1. To consider and report on a Reply by the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture to Report of Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Culture on Filling of vacancies on the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), as adopted by the House on 27 August 2024. The matter was referred to the Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Culture (the “Committee”) in Announcements, Tablings and Committee Reports (ATC) No 75—2024 dated 05 November 2024.

 

2.Introduction

1. 1. The Committee is required to consider and report on a letter from Minister McKenzie noting his rejection of the PanSALB short list which was forwarded to him after Parliament has done its due diligence to short list, interview and compile a final short list from which the Minister, after consultation with the Committee, shall appoint the members of the Board.

 

3.Background

1. 1. The Pan South African Language Board mandate is derived from the Constitution and established in terms of the PanSALB Act (Act No. 59 of 1995) with a broad mandate to promote and create conditions of development for all official languages; the Khoi, Nama and San languages; and the recently declared 12th official language in the form of South African Sign Language (SASL). The mandate also requires PanSALB to promote and to ensure respect for all languages commonly used by communities in South Africa, including languages used for religious purposes.

2. 2. As indicated in the Committee reports provided, PanSALB has been operating in the absence of a Board since the end of March 2024.

3. 3. An ad hoc Committee, established by the Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture (the “Department”) in terms of section 5(3)(a) of the PanSALB Act, forwarded a list of 134 nominations to the Committee on 09 January 2024, which the Committee duly processed in the constant presence of a parliamentary legal assistant in the Office on Institutions Supporting Democracy (OISD).

4. 4. It is imperative to note the shortlisting process that the Committee followed during the 6th Parliament has been reported on.

5. 5. To supplement this report, the necessary supporting documents, where applicable, is available on request.

 

4.Bases of the objection and the Committee’s responses to these

1. 1. “It was immediately clear to me that there was a glaring absence of white people from this board, even though a number of well-qualified white people applied.”

 

The official nomination form for members of the new Board of PanSALB for the period 06 March 2024 to 05 March 2029 contains the following sections:

• Section A: Nominator; Nominee; and Motivation statement;

• Section B: Acceptance of Nomination by the nominee – in which the nominee detailed, amongst other personal information, “gender and race”;

• Section C: Other information – in which the nominee had to indicate details of any criminal record.

 

Below is a breakdown by race as indicated by the nominees on the official nomination form:

Race as indicated on the nomination form by nominee
African	40
Black	54
African (Black)	4
Black (Liswati)	1
White	2
Indian	7
Coloured	4
Khoikhoi African	1
Khoi-San	1
Caucasian	1
Human race	1
South African	1
Not indicated	17
Total nominees	134

 

Based on the nomination forms submitted to the Committee by the PanSALB ad hoc committee, two nominees self-identified as “White”, namely Dr Conrad Ignatius Steenkamp and Dr Lindie Koorts. Ms Mariann (Mariana) Magdalena Maartens self-identified as “Human race”. A further candidate, not singled out in the Minister’s initial communication on the matter, Mr Alexander Barkly Storrar Molteno, self-identified as “Caucasian”. No other nominees identified themselves as White or could be inferred as being White.

 

1. 2. “Mariann M Maartens has been on the PANSalb (sic) board for the past five years, and she applied for another term. She did not make the shortlist this time around.”

Seven former PanSALB Board members who served on the Board until March 2023 were amongst the list of 134 nominees. Four out of the seven former Board members were selected to be interviewed. Ms Maartens was one of three former Board members not selected to be interviewed. Further, only three of the seven former Board members were included in the final short list as indicated in the table below.

 

Name	Selected for interview	Final short list
Fio Dolly Gaebeng Dlavane	Yes	Yes
Nomakhosazana Hazel Rasana	Yes	Yes
Seipati Bernice Dichabe	No	No
Kgomotso Manfred Molebaloa	Yes	No
Mariana (Mariaan) Magdalena Maartens	No	No
Preetha Dabideen	No	No
Rosethal Lolie Makhubu-Badenhorst	Yes	Yes

 

Additionally, Section 5(5) of the PanSALB Act states “A member of the Board shall be appointed for a term of five years and shall on the expiration of such term be eligible for reappointment for one further term only.” This provision in the legislation however does not automatically qualify a previous member of the Board to be eligible for reappointment as all the nominated candidates have to be considered.

 

1. 3. “…the PanSALB Act (Act 59 of 1995, amended by Act 10 of 1999) allows for 20 names to be provided to the Minister from which a board of no more than 15 board members can be chosen.”

Section 5(3)(b)(iii) of the PanSALB Act compels the Committee to “compile and forward to the Minister a final short list…provided that no final short list of more than 20 candidates shall be compiled. The legislation is not prescriptive about the minimum number of candidates to be included in the Committee’s final short list. As the Minister shall appoint a Board of not fewer than 11 but not more than 15 persons (as indicated in the following section of this report), the Committee provided the Minister with a sufficient number of candidates from which a Board can be appointed.

 

1. 4. “There was space to include another two names, and they could have been of white South Africans. This would have allowed me, as the Minister, to face a choice of whether I wished to comply with the Act’s provision in paragraph 5(2)(c) that the members of the Board shall be broadly representative of the diversity of the South African community; and (d) be supportive of the principle of multilingualism”

 

Section 5(1)(a)(i) of the PanSALB Act states that the Minister shall appoint as members of the Board not fewer than 11 but not more than 15 persons who, when viewed collectively, are as representative as possible of the official languages as well as language skills, including but not limited to, interpreting, translation, terminology and lexicography, language and literacy teaching and language planning.

 

Section 5(2)(c) of the PanSALB Act states that members of the Board shall, inter alia, be broadly representative of the diversity of the South African community (added emphasis). The legislation does not call for members to be broadly representative of the racial composition of South Africa but instead calls for members to be broadly representative of the country’s diversity. Diversity, while an ambiguous noun, in the context of the Constitution relates to, but is not limited to, race, gender, culture, religion, language, ethnicity, and disability. Therefore, when processing nominations for the PanSALB Board, dimensions of diversity that are independent of race are also considered. Careful consideration was also given to the section 5(1)(a)(i) which outlines the collective set of skills that the Board should possess.

 

The Committee would like to reiterate that its function in the shortlisting process is outlined in section 5(3)(b) of the PanSALB Act and this guided the Committee throughout its shortlisting process.

 

The Committee initially shortlisted 19 candidates as reported on 20 March 2024. Unfortunately, this report lapsed in terms of the Rule 351 of the Rules of the National Assembly. Further, one shortlisted candidate unfortunately passed away in May 2024 as noted in the Committee report dated 20 August 2024. The Committee of the 7th Parliament chose to revive the report which was adopted and tabled reflecting the names of 18 remaining candidates.

 

5.Observations and Recommendations

1. 1. The Committee regrets that the Minister’s letter of rejection was sent to Parliament nearly eight weeks after the House adopted the report on the final short list, and without prior consultation with the Committee, as per section (5)(3)(c) of the PanSALB Act.

2. 2. The Committee requested that the Minister forward any legal opinion he sought prior to noting his rejection of the short list for the Committee to have a basis of understanding the Minister’s rejection of the final short list.

3. 3. Should it be the desire of the Minister and/or the Department to have a Board that broadly reflects the racial and gender composition of South Africa, the Department should consider amending the PanSALB Act to enforce this.

4. 4. Given the protracted period that PanSALB has been operating without a Board, the Committee recommends that the Minister selects a Board based on the list of 18 candidates as adopted by the House by no later than 30 November 2024. The Committee furnished the Minister with an additional three candidates beyond the maximum number of Board members required for a Board to be constituted.

 

6.Conclusion

The Committee will regard this report in response to the letter of rejection as the Minister’s consultation with the Committee as per section 5(3)(c) of the PanSALB Act.

 

Considering the very broad mandate of the Pan South African Language Board and the extensive range of skills that the collective Board is legally required to possess, the Committee is satisfied that the individuals shortlisted fulfil these requirements to position the institution to fully discharge its mandate. The Committee is of the view that these individuals best represent the competences needed to provide the strategic support and direction to ensure that previously marginalised languages and those facing extinction are adequately promoted and developed and, moreover, afforded the respect they were once denied.

 

The Freedom Front Plus noted its objection to the report.

 

Report to be considered.