Ed Herbst: Gerrymandering the SABC board. The interns list.

By Ed Herbst*

All the above findings are symptomatic of pathological corporate governance deficiencies at the SABC, including failure by the SABC board to provide strategic oversight to the national broadcaster. The board was dysfunctional and on its watch, allowed (Dr Ben) Ngubane to effectively perform the function of an executive chairperson by authorising numerous salary increments for Motsoeneng…Mr Motsoeneng has been allowed by successive boards to operate above the law, undermining the GCEO among others, and causing the staff, particularly in the human resources and financial departments to engage in unlawful conduct.” Thuli Madonsela, When Governance and Ethics Fail 17/2/2014

President Jacob Zuma has received and accepted the resignation of Mr Krish Naidoo and Mr Vusi Mavuso as members of the Board of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) the Presidency said in a brief statement on Sunday. – Zuma accepts the resignation of two SABC board membersNews 24, 16/10/2016

The African National Congress was supposed to be setting about what it must regard as an extremely rewarding ritual because it keeps doing it.

Veteran journalist Ed Herbst
Veteran journalist Ed Herbst

It was expected to start the process of dismembering yet another SABC board of its own creation which, as is the norm, is packed with Zuma acolytes. But has postponed the discussion.

During the Mandela and Mbeki eras, no SABC board was driven out of office but this will be the third time that it has happened since President Jacob Zuma became our political leader.

The clock is ticking for the ANC – dominated parliamentary portfolio committee on communication because the SABC 8 have approached the Constitutional Court saying that the committee neglected its constitutional duty in their regard. So, yet again, citizens have to seek the intervention of the courts to get the Zuma faction to govern honestly and efficiently.

The postponed meeting will hopefully also end the shameful era of Hlaudi Motsoeneng, a towering symbol of the innate evil of cadre deployment.

In the initial post-1994 period, the period when we had a government of national unity and the country’s political leader was a respected man because he was a principled man, the process of selecting an SABC board was transparent and democratic and input from all political parties was welcomed when it came to selecting people for the board.

Thereafter the ANC abandoned all pretence and simply packed the board with its supporters.

Three ANC-dominated SABC boards have collapsed – all in the Zuma era.

The first was the board, chaired By Eddie Funde which came into being under President Thabo Mbeki but was removed from office after he had been forced to step down.

The second was the board chaired by Dr Ben Ngubane and the latest and current one to be defenestrated is chaired by Professor Mbulaheni Maghuve.

The Eddie Funde board

The rot set in when Thabo Mbeki became President and, overlooking better qualified people, appointed his acolytes, people like Christine Qunta, Thami Mazwai and Eddie Funde, the latter alleged to have snouted R4 million in a dodgy deal after he left the board.

They, in turn, with the connivance of Luthuli House, appointed Snuki Zikalala and Dali Mpofu and the SABC was bankrupted and had its news credibility destroyed. Despite this, as is ANC custom, both Mpofu and Zikalala left the SABC having become multi-millionaires during their tenure.

SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng
SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng

In 2009 the ANC set about getting rid of the remaining members of the last Mbeki-appointed board and, just like the current lot, the then board weren’t at all keen to give up on the perks of office.

Led by Qunta, they refused to answer questions in parliament and suggested that the steps being taken to get rid of a fractiously dysfunctional (sound familiar?) board were nefarious, underhand and politically motivated.

Here’s an extract from a contemporary report – ask yourself whether you have not heard similar sentiments expressed recently:

ANC MP Johnny de Lange said Qunta’s statement left him “breathless”.

“My view is that this is a properly constituted inquiry. We have said that we want to engage with them on what they have been doing for the past 18 months.”

Independent Democrats MP Patricia De Lille called on the board members to “account to Parliament”.

“The SABC is suffering. Let’s save what is left, because you have destroyed the SABC.”

Extreme distaste

A reporter acquaintance who attended these meetings said that, at one of them, a woman board member demanded a dress allowance for attending the meetings. I was told that, for a fleeting moment, an expression of extreme distaste manifested itself on the normally inscrutable countenance of Ismael Vadi, the then chairman of the communication portfolio committee.

For another soupcon of SABC soapie déjà vu, how about this article on the resignation in 2005 of board member Noluthando Gosa:

Gosa resigned from the board on December 1, citing frustration over the failure of the board to act on the recommendations of four separate forensic reports.

The reports found irregularities relating to the commissioning of programmes, unauthorised expenditure and free distribution of SABC educational material, among others, and suggested urgent board action against the alleged culprits.

The Sunday Independent said the matter had not come up at recent board meetings despite requests from Gosa that they be debated.

She wrote to Mbeki outlining her concerns – needless to say nothing came of her whistle blowing and the snouting continued apace.

Ethnic quotas

We are constantly told that South African media must transform to comply with the concept of ethnic quotas first specified by the Nazis in the 1930s when they decreed that the admission of Jewish people to university should not be determined on merit but on their demographic ratio in the German population – one and a half percent – a principle that was recently rejected by the United Nations. It described the ANC’s concept of “transformation” – a word not found in the constitution – as just another form of apartheid.

Cartoon courtesy of Twitter @brandanrey
Cartoon courtesy of Twitter @brandanrey

Strangely enough, the Race Merchants who are the most vociferous advocates of this form of ethnic coercion and exclusion are absolutely silent about the fact that the current SABC board has been “transformed” to such an extent that it does not include a single white person or a single person whose home language is Afrikaans. This, despite the fact that Afrikaans is the third most spoken language in the country after Zulu and Xhosa; despite the fact that white citizens are not the predominant users of the language; despite the fact that more people use Afrikaans as a common language than any other; despite the fact that it is an indigenous language and despite the fact that Afrikaans programmes bring in a significant percentage of the state broadcaster’s advertising revenue.

But what of the board before the current one – the one when Dr Ben Ngubane ruled the roost with an iron fist and a bottomless pocket filled with your money and mine when it came to sending cronies on overseas trips where prostitutes were allegedly patronised but not paid.

The Ben Ngubane board

Yes, the same Dr Ben Ngubane who was rewarded by being made chairman of Eskom despite the fact that the Public Protector found that there were ‘pathological corporate governance deficiencies’ at the SABC on his watch.

The role that Ngubane played in Motsoeneng’s rise to power is startling.

When Motsoeneng made his first unexpected and unannounced appearance at a board meeting and his presence was questioned by some board members, Ngubane said he could attend all board meetings because he was in charge of “stakeholder relations” and you can decide for yourself who was deemed to be the most important stakeholder.

Ben Ngubane
Ben Ngubane

So intolerable was Motsoeneng’s behaviour at board meetings thereafter that all board members finally resolved to hold a properly quorate and legal meeting to remove Motsoeneng as COO.

Ngubane objected and refused to attend the meeting.

The meeting was subsequently held, Motsoeneng was removed as acting COO and the minutes of the meeting, compiled by the Company Secretary, were immediately communicated to the utterly corrupt Communications Minister, Dina Pule.

Luthuli House instructions

The board had previously presented a comprehensive document to parliament relating to the behaviour of Ngubane which included his illegal and unilateral appointment of Phl Molefe as head of news and current affairs without consulting the board

The ANC-dominated Parliament rejected this document and would not allow board members to address it on the matter. They ruled, instead that the board members should seek to address their concerns about Ngubane’s dictatorial behaviour privately.

The board meeting which resolved that Motsoeneng be removed as acting COO was chaired in terms of the Broadcasting Act by Ngubane’s deputy, Thami Ka Plaatjie who had previously crossed the floor from the PAC to the ANC.

Cartoon courtesy of Twitter

Once the call from Luthuli House came, Ka Plaaitjie tried to have the decision by the board to remove Motsoeneng as acting COO rescinded!

This was immediately countered by a formal statement from the rest of the board excoriating his unilateral attempt to nullify a perfectly legal decision.

Within days Ngubane triggered the collapse of the board by resigning and Luthuli House then instructed all the ANC/SACP/Cosatu-aligned board members to follow suit. Most board members capitulated. Suzanne Vos knew that if she also resigned, there would not be an inquiry and she was left to go to parliament alone to place all these facts on record and to point out that the biggest part of the problem was the ANC-dominated parliament itself. She was only allotted a few minutes to speak.

Vos faced Dina Pule and her deputy, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams who constantly interjected during Vos’ few minutes of testimony by shouting “We hire, we fire!” It was appallingly uncouth behaviour but absolutely typical of the ANC which has long abandoned any pretensions to the grace and dignity which characterised Nelson Mandela.

That afternoon parliament recommended the dissolution of the board and the recommendation was accepted – all in the same day!

Intolerable ANC interference

With the recent resignation of lawyer Krish Naidoo from the SABC board still fresh in our minds, let us not forget that Peter Harris, a lawyer with impeccable Struggle credentials chose, in 2011, to walk away from the SABC board chaired by Dr Ben Ngubane because of intolerable ANC interference. He was replaced by the compliant Thami Ka Plaatjie who was rewarded with a government post for his role in collapsing the Ngubane board.

That board, as described above, was as much a circus as the current one and on its watch the then CEO, Lulama Mokhobo, nefariously tried to ensure that President Jacob Zuma’s conduit at the SABC, the intellectual lecher, got the influential position of SABC COO.

Here’s the kicker:

The Sunday Independent learnt that Mokhobo advertised the COO job on Friday, but apparently deleted parts where academic qualifications were required ostensibly to ensure that Motsoeneng, who does not even have a matric but has strong political backing, qualified for the position.

Prior to its dissolution the Ngubane Board was asked to attend a meeting with the Public Protector.

For the second time Ngubane refused to attend an SABC-related meeting. He was subsequently interviewed separately by Thuli Madonsela and was excoriated in her report.

South African Public Protector Thuli Madonsela gestures during a briefing with journalists at Reuters offices in Sandton outside Johannesburg, South Africa, June 7, 2016 . REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
South Africa’s former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela.

At the Public Protector meeting that was attended by the majority of board members as well as SABC executives, they were told by Group CEO, Lulama Mokhobo, that Ngubane had instructed her to remove references to academic qualifications from the advertisement for a COO – something that was clearly intended to facilitate Motsoeneng’s appointment to the post.

It was also at this meeting with Madonsela that board members discovered, to their astonished distress, that the dramatic increases in Motsoeneng’s remuneration – which had not been placed before the board – were signed off by Ngubane!

One can only wonder if this does not continue to be the case as regards the more recent increases in Motsoeneng’s salary and the apparent decision to give him an R11 million bonus.

Former board member Suzanne Vos, in addition to her brave and principled testimony in parliament which is a matter of Hansard record, has also posted her parliamentary briefing notes on Politicsweb.

https://twitter.com/lesterkk/status/786147105253371904

Ngubane has never publicly responded to any of the allegations made by board members about his behaviour during his tenure as chairman and neither has he availed himself of the legal redress that would pertain if the Vos article on Politicsweb was not true and was accordingly defamatory.

What should be noted in retrospect is that Mokhobo, during her brief tenure as CEO, received an R8 million golden handshake for a few months ‘work’ and this was seen by the Snouting Faction as appropriate recompense for her efforts, made at the behest of Ngubane, to get Motsoeneng appointed as COO.

The current SABC board

According to a 2013 Sunday Times report, Luthuli House gerrymandered the appointment of the current SABC board, using its interns (shades of Dr Iqbal Surve’s “Intern Investigation Unit”!) to draw up its list of the current SABC board members. They carefully ensured that people with actual broadcasting experience like Kate Skinner and John Matisonn were excluded, just as Max du Preez had been excluded on a previous occasion.

By cosmic coincidence one of the people who did make this version of an ANC slate was Nomvuyo Memory Mhlakaza, wife of ANCYL leader and ANC MP Buti Manamela – no question of nepotism there, of course, because according to the Luthuli House interns, although she had no experience of broadcasting she was clearly made of the right stuff – she was a member of the ANC Youth League when R100 million was snouted in the organising of what was derisively dismissed as a fornication fest.

In September 2013 when the current SABC board was selected, DA MP Marian Shinn presciently stated that the Luthuli House interns had “chosen to select candidates on the basis of party political loyalties and not proficiency for the task at hand”.

This presaged yet another SABC legal circus which saw Ellen Tshabalala a very, very close friend of President Jacob Zuma, going to court again and again, using your money and mine, before resigning in appropriate ignominy and without contributing a cent of her own money towards her typically-ANC vexatious litigation.

The scandal that saw the exit of Ellen Tshabalala.
The scandal that saw the exit of Ellen Tshabalala.

Tokoloshe burglars

Here’s Mondli Makhanya’s take on that typically-sordid ANC episode:

It will be remembered that Tshabalala’s tenure ended when her tertiary qualifications went missing after a gang of tokoloshe burglars broke into her house and the Unisa IT system. After this unfortunate incident, her equally ineffectual deputy, Obert Maguvhe, moved into the main chair.

The SABC’s financial survival depends on getting rid of the current crop of ANC-linked scavengers on its catastrophically-incompetent board – to cite just a single instance, the Durban radio station Lotus FM has seen its daily listenership figure drop from 260 000 to 130 000 in little more than a month since Hlaudi Motsoeneng forced the station – without any consultation or market research – to betray its Indian culture and to start playing kwaito.

This morning the ANC-created SABC circus once again assumes centre stage in the ANC-dominated parliamentary talk shop.

Nothing remotely like this occurred at the SABC prior to 1994 and it was at that time that Cyril Ramaphosa, on behalf of the African National Congress, gave the following assurance:

“If the SABC is to play a constructive role ahead of our country’s first experience with democracy, informing the electorate rather than attempting to persuade them to vote for a particular political party, it is necessary to replace those who currently control the SABC with others who are committed to democracy and to an electorate empowered by accurate and impartial information.”

He will, hopefully, attend the SABC meeting in due course.

  • Ed Herbst is a retired veteran journalist who writes in his own capacity.
Visited 116 times, 1 visit(s) today