DA to challenge SABC on acting appointment
CAPE TOWN — The SABC’s former chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng — reportedly paid an R11.4m bonus last week — will likely face yet more court action, following reports that the public broadcaster is determined to retain him in an acting capacity, in apparent defiance of a Supreme Court of Appeal order.
The DA announced at the weekend that it had instructed its legal team to challenge Motsoeneng’s appointment as acting chief operating officer.
The bonus payment could also be raised in the court papers, which will be lodged this week. The bonus was reported in both City Press and the Sunday Times, but the amounts cited were different, with the Sunday Times saying it was R10m before tax while City Press cited an amount of R11.4m after tax.
“We have been left with no other option following the deplorable decision taken by the SABC to undermine the Western Cape High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal,” DA federal executive chairman James Selfe said on Sunday. “This decision is a slap in the face of the rule of law and is a desperate attempt to allow the Hlaudi Motsoeneng ‘wrecking ball’ to continue his disastrous reign at the public broadcaster.”
The Supreme Court of Appeal last week confirmed the high court order that Motsoeneng’s appointment as chief operating officer was irrational, given the damning findings of a public protector report into governance issues at the public broadcaster.
Selfe said the content of the DA’s court papers would also depend on a judgment, expected this week, in an application by the SABC for a stay of a DA court case to review and set aside the “garbage” disciplinary proceedings that the SABC had instituted against Motsoeneng.
The disciplinary inquiry was one of the remedial actions directed by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela in her report When Governance and Ethics Fail. The inquiry cleared Motsoeneng.
The SABC asked for a stay of the DA’s application to set it aside, pending its own court application to review Madonsela’s findings.
City Press reported on Sunday that the SABC planned to appoint Motsoeneng to the position of group executive for corporate affairs, which he would vacate to take over as acting chief operating officer. But Selfe said the SABC could only appoint him to another position if it followed the correct procedures of advertising the post, short-listing, interviews and selecting the best candidate.
The SABC is due to release its 2015-16 financial results on Thursday and is expected to show a loss of nearly R500m.
The Right2Know Campaign said it would be holding a national day of action on Wednesday — International Right to Know Day — to highlight the ongoing crisis and planned to march to top SABC advertisers to call on them to pull their adverts.