Members of Parliament (MPs) are Tuesday expected to begin the arduous task of shortlisting 36 candidates to be interviewed for board positions available for the cash-strapped South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

Parliament’s portfolio committee on communications received 363 applications for the 12 positions available on the board.

A five member interim board is currently overseeing the public broadcaster after the previous board was dissolved following a parliamentary inquiry which found serious governance problems and financial mismanagement, among others.

“We’ll decide Tuesday. Surely the political parties will come with their preferences then we’ll deal with that at the end and we’ll emerge with 36 names,” said Humphrey Maxegwana, committee chairperson.

“The preferences will be informed by the weight of the quality of each candidate, their relevance to the jobs that were advertised, and various other criteria.”

The committee’s meeting has been set down for 10 hours.

Last week, the committee agreed the names of the 36 successful candidates would be published on the parliamentary website. Civil society organisations and individuals would have five working days to comment.

The candidates would not only be subjected to rigorous interviews, their background information and qualifications would be probed.

“As we agree on the 36, they will go through a number of processes, including qualifications, vetting and all that while we are interviewing them,” Maxegwana said.

In 2014, former SABC board chairperson Ellen Tshabalala resigned after it emerged she had lied about her academic qualifications.

MPs say they are serious about bringing stability to the SABC by having a permanent board in place to restore the integrity, financial position and public confidence in the broadcaster.

Several SABC boards have not served their full terms following in-fighting, an environment of impunity, and allegations of political interference.