Kaapanda in the hot seat

THE Minister of Information and Communication Technology, who celebrated his first six months in office last week, is having a rough ride in his relations with Government-owned media.

Within the first two months of his reign at the renamed Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Joel Kaapanda witnessed the resignation of the chairman of the New Era Board of Directors, Vilbard Usiku, in June. On Friday, he was hit with another resignation – this time from the acting chairperson of the board, Katrina Sikeni.Both these resignations, The Namibian has established, concern issues around the chief executive officers of New Era and its sister paper, Southern Times.On both occasions, Minister Kaapanda was not happy with the way the boards of New Era and Namzim Newspapers, the holding company of Southern Times, dealt with the appointments of and disciplinary issues concerning the CEOs of the two papers.Sikeni’s sudden resignation on Friday, The Namibian learnt, follows the board’s renewal of the contract of the current New Era CEO Sylvester Black with another three years.The Minister, The Namibian was informed, was furious with the board’s “unilateral” decision to extend Black’s employment contract without consulting him.Sikeni confirmed that Black’s contract was renewed, but said her resignation had nothing to do with this.While he has witnessed two resignations from members of New Era’s board so far, Kaapanda is also dousing fires at the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) after it emerged last week that he had circulated a secret memorandum to Cabinet about his wish to get rid of NBC board chairman, Ponhele ya France.The memorandum detailed how the trust relationship between him and Ya France had “deteriorated” to the point that they could “hardly reach consensus on issues of NBC’s interest”.The Minister recommended in the memorandum that Ya France be removed from the board “in the interest of the corporation”.Before the exposé of the secret Cabinet memorandum, it was widely reported that Kaapanda had given Ya France verbal marching orders.But these reports were denied by the Minister, while Ya France insisted that he would not vacate the NBC board seat at the whim of the Minister and without a dismissal letter.The Minister also did not take kindly to Ya France allegedly having “aligned himself with the Director General (NBC) instead of co-operating and supporting the line Minister in order to realise the aims and objectives of the NBC”.The core of the boards of New Era and the NBC, together with their current CEOs, were appointed and endorsed by the former Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.Kaapanda recently announced the appointment of two additional members to the NBC board, but has so far not found a replacement for Usiku on the New Era board.After Usiku’s resignation, New Era took out a full-page advertisement in the paper congratulating Sikeni on her “appointment” as the new chairperson of the board.However, the management of the paper issued a retraction the following day, saying that Sikeni would only serve in an acting capacity, after the Minister, who is the appointing authority of the board, intervened and insisted that the inaccuracy be corrected.Attempts to obtain comment from Minister Kaapanda yesterday were fruitless.A number of messages were left at his office.On Friday, he was hit with another resignation – this time from the acting chairperson of the board, Katrina Sikeni.Both these resignations, The Namibian has established, concern issues around the chief executive officers of New Era and its sister paper, Southern Times.On both occasions, Minister Kaapanda was not happy with the way the boards of New Era and Namzim Newspapers, the holding company of Southern Times, dealt with the appointments of and disciplinary issues concerning the CEOs of the two papers.Sikeni’s sudden resignation on Friday, The Namibian learnt, follows the board’s renewal of the contract of the current New Era CEO Sylvester Black with another three years.The Minister, The Namibian was informed, was furious with the board’s “unilateral” decision to extend Black’s employment contract without consulting him.Sikeni confirmed that Black’s contract was renewed, but said her resignation had nothing to do with this.While he has witnessed two resignations from members of New Era’s board so far, Kaapanda is also dousing fires at the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) after it emerged last week that he had circulated a secret memorandum to Cabinet about his wish to get rid of NBC board chairman, Ponhele ya France.The memorandum detailed how the trust relationship between him and Ya France had “deteriorated” to the point that they could “hardly reach consensus on issues of NBC’s interest”.The Minister recommended in the memorandum that Ya France be removed from the board “in the interest of the corporation”.Before the exposé of the secret Cabinet memorandum, it was widely reported that Kaapanda had given Ya France verbal marching orders.But these reports were denied by the Minister, while Ya France insisted that he would not vacate the NBC board seat at the whim of the Minister and without a dismissal letter.The Minister also did not take kindly to Ya France allegedly having “aligned himself with the Director General (NBC) instead of co-operating and supporting the line Minister in order to realise the aims and objectives of the NBC”.The core of the boards of New Era and the NBC, together with their current CEOs, were appointed and endorsed by the former Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.Kaapanda recently announced the appointment of two additional members to the NBC board, but has so far not found a replacement for Usiku on the New Era board.After Usiku’s resignation, New Era took out a full-page advertisement in the paper congratulating Sikeni on her “appointment” as the new chairperson of the board.However, the management of the paper issued a retraction the following day, saying that Sikeni would only serve in an acting capacity, after the Minister, who is the appointing authority of the board, intervened and insisted that the inaccuracy be corrected.Attempts to obtain comment from Minister Kaapanda yesterday were fruitless.A number of messages were left at his office.