Sentech chief operating officer Beverly Ngwenya will act as the state-owned broadcast signal distributor’s head until a permanent CEO is appointed. Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda has asked Ngwenya, who joined Sentech three years ago from MTN, to run the troubled company following the resignation of Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane.
Nyanda has also appointed a new chairman, Quraysh Patel, who takes over from Colin Hickling. Mesuli Dhlamini, Zanele Hlatshwayo and Thabo Leeuw have also been appointed to Sentech’s board of directors for a period of three years. The appointments were ratified by cabinet last week.
Government is clearing out the old management at the troubled company in a bid to turn it around. Sentech is key to a successful implementation of digital terrestrial television. It will also play an instrumental role of the 2010 soccer World Cup.
Mokone-Matabane’s resignation comes just months before her contract was due to expire in September, which has led to speculation that she was forced out.
Her resignation follows the completion of an independent task team’s report, commissioned by Nyanda into problems at Sentech and the SABC, which found that Sentech was “rudderless, inadequately funded and misdirected” and was an unsustainable business.
The task team urged drastic and immediate action if Sentech was to avoid lapsing into terminal decline. — TechCentral, with Sapa
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