Is era of parastatal paralysis over?
The SABC shake-up and ANC shift bode well for the reform of other public enterprises
The dramatic and swift overhaul of the SABC by the new board could signal that it is the first domino to fall in clearing out the rot at corrupted state-owned entities, and its path to restoration could well serve as a blueprint for other bedevilled parastatals.
An interim board took over the SABC just four months ago and has quickly gone to work to address key problems and people within the troubled organisation.
Critically, it oversaw a disciplinary process that led to the dismissal of self-proclaimed messiah and the broadcaster’s recurring nightmare, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, followed by the dismissal of chief executive James Aguma.
The interim board has reworked financial arrangements, including suspending payments to the board itself, until the broadcaster’s finances have been stabilised.
It has also overturned the previous board’s decision to challenge the public protector’s report, which made damning findings against Motsoeneng and the SABC.
“We hope we have given the country hope,” interim chairperson Khanyisile Kweyama told the Mail & Guardian this week.
She said the board would now pursue other findings of wrongdoing against Motsoeneng and others, as detailed in the public protector’s report. This would not necessarily mean taking the matter to the police but civil action could be taken, such as issuing summonses for monies owed, Kweyama said.
The SABC would also assist the Special Investigating Unit in its investigation of the SABC, although this is waiting to be signed off by the presidency. (See “SIU can’t act without the president’s okay”.)
The report’s findings against Motsoeneng include how he advised the board on his own salary increases, which climbed from R1.5-million a year to R2.4-million in a single year. He was also found to have purged the organisation of his detractors, costing R29-million in settlement and legal fees.
In the case of the SABC, a parliamentary inquiry was conducted three years after the public protector’s report, although it was for other fraudulent behaviour and resulted in the parliamentary committee putting an interim board in place. The inquiry was initiated by an ad hoc committee and not the communications committee.
Former public protector Thuli Madonsela found Motsoeneng was enabled by a board that must have been corrupt or incompetent itself.
Former SABC chairperson Ben Ngubane, who only recently stepped down from Eskom amid the exposure of graft, was found to be instrumental in tailoring the job requirements for the public broadcaster’s chief operations officer specifically to accommodate Motsoeneng’s lack of matric.
The key to clearing out the rot in any institution was ensuring good governance, Kweyama said. “Good governance is absolutely critical, and a refusal to listen to anything but what is the right thing to do.”
Ensuring policies were in place, as well as consequences for breaking them, were key to this, she added.
But unlike the SABC, Eskom remains saddled with compromised individuals in executive positions, though a process similar to that followed at the SABC is now unfolding at Eskom in double time.
For Eskom, the public protector’s State of Capture report, released in November, has led directly to a parliamentary inquiry, whose terms of reference were finalised by the public enterprises committee this week.
It was determined these would be broadened to include state capture relating to various public enterprises, especially Denel and Transnet. The Gupta brothers and even President Jacob Zuma’s son, Duduzane, would be called as witnesses, it decided.
Public enterprises committee chairperson and ANC MP Zukiswa Rantho said legal experts would be brought in to conduct the interviews.
Asked whether there was a consensus among ANC MPs, Rantho said: “The ANC MPs are on board. It is them that initiated the inquiry so they are very excited to be going ahead with it.”
Phumzile van Damme, the Democratic Alliance’s spokesperson on communications and a member of the parliamentary committee on communications, said she had to push very hard for the inquiry into the SABC to take place. “The ANC originally didn’t want that to happen,” she said.
Former communications minister Faith Muthambi put up many barriers to prevent a probe, she said. “Gavin Davis, in the committee before me, was blocked at every turn on the issues he tried to fix there.”
For parliamentary committees to launch seemingly credible inquiries to tackle corruption within the state is new.
“We have never seen this before,” said political analyst Ralph Mathekga. “I also think the enthusiasm with which the MPs are tackling this issue is very strange, especially coming from ANC MPs.”
The main driver of these inquiries is factional battles within the ANC.
“Some members have decided not to abandon the ANC. Instead, they