When one considers the full scale of the SABC corruption that the Public Prosecutor uncovered, it seems almost impossible that there will be no consequences for disgraced acting chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng. Yet, as Cynthia Schoeman of the Ethics Monitor points out, so far, nothing has been done despite extensive evidence documenting Motsoeneng’s malfeasance. It’s frustrating for South Africa citizens to watch this story unfold, because it seems like the country’s institutions are powerless to take action, even though there is some clear skullduggery going on at a state-owned enterprise – which is the one place you’d expect the State to be able to do something about corruption. Let’s hope that as the foul smell of the Public Prosecutor’s report continues to waft through the halls of the SABC, someone in power decides to do something. – FD
ALEC HOGG: Cynthia Schoeman from the Ethics Monitor, you’re stirring waves again Cynthia, this time the SABC.
CYNTHIA SCHOEMAN: Well, I didn’t stir that wave, but it certainly has been a significant wave that has been stirred around the Public Protector’s report on the SABC. It is really almost a soap opera in itself.
GUGULETHU MFUPHI: Now, you published an article on this, detailing all the facts that came out of it. Elaborate on it for us.
CYNTHIA SCHOEMAN: There were complaints brought to the Public Protector and accordingly, they went in there and did a bit of research and what came out was shocking. In all fairness, it did support the PWC findings of late 2013 that looked at the skills audit in the organisation. The things that are coming out is that the acting COO was found to have been fraudulent as regards a Matric Certificate. To add to just that incident, the then acting Chairman Dr Ben Ngubane, in fact changed the requirements for a job to exclude the matriculation as a requirement. There were however, other scathing charges. Salaries were awarded to people inappropriately and many people pushed out with completely inappropriate procedures, which added huge costs to the organisation in terms of CCMA, court action, and legal fees. Coming back to the acting COO who seems to be impervious to these charges; he also – I say ‘awarded himself’ – but in the period of a single year, received three salary increases from a salary of one-point-five, to two-point-four million per annum and I think many people would wish to receive that. Her findings were that she really investigated this issue, and all these issues were substantiated in her report, so they’re really very damning findings.
ALEC HOGG: You wonder what goes on in the heads of those who perpetrate these kinds of nonsense: changing his Matric certificate and the Chairman saying it’s okay. Do they not think that they have thousands of others who are watching every step along the way? Do they think we’re stupid, or that the people who work there, are dumb?
CYNTHIA SCHOEMAN: Alec, I think part of the problem with this story is that they almost seem to be disregarding of other opinions. The current Chairman of the SABC Board is on record as saying ‘the Board is right behind him and of course, we would want him to stay in this position irrespective of the report’. You look at it and think ‘for goodness’ sake, that can’t be’ with charges of that magnitude but in fact, that is not the response. It is – politely, I suppose one could say – it’s counterintuitive, but the response has been as startling as the accusations.
ALEC HOGG: Do people just not listen?
CYNTHIA SCHOEMAN: I don’t think it’s a case of not listening. I think it’s a case of power. I think it’s a case of when one feels powerful enough, that you can be impervious to these charges. I think that when we look at the acting COO, if we look at the massive turnover in the Board he’s the one person who survived. There was in fact, a wonderful cartoon in one of the newspapers and the punch line of it was ‘the invincible Hlaudini’ and that survival skill he seems to have plenty of, not that it’s a credit of course, to the organisation or to him.
ALEC HOGG: Perhaps it’s a discredit to us as citizens of this country. Bobby Godsell’s been talking with James Motlatsi about becoming active citizens. If we’re inactive citizens, then I guess this kind of thing will just continue, and you’ll get the Public Protector – bless her – making reports and exposing all of this, and nothing happens.
CYNTHIA SCHOEMAN: I think the reason your point is so especially pertinent is that what we’re looking at here, is the National Public Broadcaster. It’s not just some company. It is meant to be our National Broadcaster, we would expect them to conduct themselves appropriately, and it really couldn’t be further from the truth.
GUGULETHU MFUPHI: So whose responsibility is it to make sure that the powerful are in check and follow the rules?
@alechogg SABC problem is politics,its not independent like public protector.Its control from Lethuli House
— moloto mabatamela (@MMabatamela) February 26, 2014
CYNTHIA SCHOEMAN: Within that situation, in theory of course, it is the Chairman of the Board and the CEO would have a particular realm of responsibility. I think the challenge we have to take into account with that is that we’d be naïve to assume that there wasn’t some political influence there. You know that political influence was for the credibility of the reporting, for the betterment of the organisation, and for the benefit of the public, especially with us heading towards an election, and then we would say that political influence is being exercised appropriately. However, it really has been shown that they have weak Boards, and so someone like the current and still existing acting COO, has been able to exert an influence – a negative one, I would suggest – over a long period of time now.
ALEC HOGG: Cynthia, it’s interesting how the world is changing and developing. With the technology that we have today, we’ve seen when it gets beyond a tipping point – as in the Arab Spring – that quite radical things happen. Surely, the sensible thing is to make sure it doesn’t get to that tipping point and that people start behaving appropriately. To get back to Gugu’s question…how – how do you do it?
CYNTHIA SCHOEMAN: How do you avoid it?
ALEC HOGG: How do you get people like this, to act appropriately? He forges his Matric certificate, gives himself three salary increases, is attacked by the Public Protector who is there to protect us – the public – and yet, it’s water off a duck’s back. How do you then address this?
CYNTHIA SCHOEMAN: I feel like saying it can be addressed easily, but there’s a big ‘but’ attached to that. Without leadership will and without leadership commitment, I don’t think one can address this effectively. I think you can paper over it and you can have another little audit or another report by someone who would lend themselves to a more favourable report, but I think that papering over the cracks is all it would amount to. For me, it has to be driven by leadership will and by leadership commitment, of saying ‘that is not how this company runs. We choose to run an ethical business’.
GUGULETHU MFUPHI: Hopefully, we’ll see that soon.
CYNTHIA SCHOEMAN: So that’s the challenge.
GUGULETHU MFUPHI: An interesting challenge, indeed. Cynthia, thank you so much for your time.
