Hlaudi hands out thank-you bonus to SABC staffers
Broadcast boss ’desperate to stamp his authority’
THE SABC has paid about R42-million in “thank-you” bonuses to its staff and middle managers — in addition to normal bonuses.
SABC sources confirmed this week that the board and newly appointed chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng had decided on the grand gesture to thank employees for their hard work during Nelson Mandela’s funeral in December and the 2010 FifaWorld Cup.
But critics have lashed the decision, saying that although they are not opposed to rewarding SABC employees, they would have expected it to be performance-based.
According to sources, board chairwoman Zandile Tshabalala and Motsoeneng this week approved a one-off R8 000 aftertax bonus for the broadcaster’s 3 007 bargaining unit employees as part of this year’s wage settlement agreement with the labour unions.
Then, on Friday, a decision was made to extend the bonuses to middle managers. They were paid the equivalent of a month’s salary.
An SABC middle manager earns an average basic salary of R38 000 before tax. The company has more than 476 employees at this level. Executive and senior managers have been excluded from the bonuses.
In December, staff will also receive a 13th cheque as usual.
The bonuses come as the SABC claims it has managed to recover from a financial collapse that saw it struggling to pay production houses, being forced to survive on a Treasury guarantee and a R1-billion loan from Nedbank, which it managed to repay in October last year.
At the end of March last year, the broadcaster earned a net profit of R330-million, but its accounts were in such disarray that the auditor-general was not able to say if the numbers were correct.
This led him to issue a disclaimer on those accounts.
The government is still giving millions in taxpayer money to SABC, including R224-million last year — nearly double the R130-million handout in the previous year.
SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago strongly defended the bonus splurge.
“I don’t know why it should be an alarming thing that we’re paying staff. You can’t be stuck with the fact that we were in a financial crisis. We’re past it and we were able to pay off all the people that we were owing .”
Kganyago said the broadcaster had R1.2-billion cash in the bank and had overcome its financial challenges.
“You should be writing a story that says the SABC takes care of their staff.” He also distanced Motsoeneng and Tshabalala from the bonus decision.
An SABC staff member said: “To staff, the credibility of Hlaudi and the board depends on these bonuses . Hlaudi is desperate to stamp his authority, so he will give us [bonuses].”
Kganyago said the organisation needed to reward its employees for working hard over the past few years — during coverage of the 2010 World Cup and Mandela’s funeral.
It is a culture that rewards mediocrity and political affiliation
“This is not a bonus — a bonus is a 13th cheque they get anyway. This is just a thank you.
“That’s why it is an ex gratia payment. We are giving it to staff who are in the bargaining council.
“They’ve exceeded expectations and we’re now saying, as the organisation, we value you as our staff,” said Kganyago.
Kate Skinner, an independent broadcast researcher who is also a member of the SOS Support Public Broadcasting coalition, said although she was not opposed to SABC staff being rewarded, she was concerned that these bonuses were not performance-based.
“What you would prefer is a situation which is performancelinked so it’s not absolutely everybody who gets it, but people who have particularly performed well. You would want them rewarded.
“But SABC workers do deserve a break. They have difficult circumstances and have suffered through some incredible crises and some incredibly poor management.”
Gavin Davis, a DA MP who serves on parliament’s portfolio committee on communications, also criticised the awarding of blanket bonuses.
“There may be a few individuals who have performed well, but there is no way everybody at the SABC has,” said Davis.
“It is these kinds of decisions that explain why the SABC is in the financial mess it finds itself in. It is a culture that rewards mediocrity and, in many instances, political affiliation over excellence.
“It reminds us of Ellen Tshabalala’s claim two weeks ago that Hlaudi Motsoeneng had ‘ performed well’ at the SABC, despite the auditor-general’s disclaimer of opinion and the public protector’s findings against him.”
THE appointment of Hlaudi Motsoeneng as the SABC’s chief operating officer despite his dishonest and prima facie criminal behaviour raises serious questions about the willingness of public institutions and our government to respect constitutional institutions and obey the law.
It suggests that instead of viewing public protector Thuli Madonsela as an ally who can assist in rooting out dishonesty, maladministration, corruption and criminal behaviour, some public institutions and government ministers view her as an irritating impediment to impunity.
Because South African journalists who are not employed by the SABC often hunt in packs (SABC journalists seldom hunt at all), they often manage to create a negative image of an individual that accords with their own agendas.
Once the pack identifies a public persona as worthy of scorn, the vilification continues apace. Any consideration of the other side of the story seldom comes into it. So I try not to assume the worst of a public official or politician in the absence of clear evidence that he or she is a scoundrel.
As the hysteria around Motsoeneng’s appointment reached a crescendo, I wondered if he may not have been unfairly targeted because of his support for the licensing of journalists. Maybe it is not a big deal that he does not have formal qualifications, as long as he does his job diligently and with integrity?
I went back to the report published by the public protector earlier this year on the shenanigans at the SABC to determine whether Motsoeneng was not being unfairly painted as a dishonest, bumbling scoundrel. Sadly, the public protector’s report suggests, if anything, that journalists have been too kind.
The public protector found that when Motsoeneng first applied for a job at the SABC, he completed an application form in which he indicated that he had passed Standard 10 (“matric”) in 1991 at the age of 23. However, he provided symbols for only five subjects (in which he indicated he had attained four E and one F symbols).
During an interview with the public protector, he admitted to falsifying his matric qualification and blamed others who, he said, had told him to make up his matric symbols, which he did. With regard to the matric certificate, the form says “outstanding”, giving the impression that the certificate exists and would be submitted in due course.
The report quotes him as telling the public protector: “From me . . . for now because I do understand all the issues, I was not supposed to be honest. If I was . . . now I was clear in my mind, like now I know what is wrong, what is right, I was not supposed to even put it, but there they said, ‘No, put it’, but what is important for me, public protector, is everybody knew and even when I put there I said to the lady ‘I’m not sure about my symbols’ and why I was not sure, public protector, is because I go, a sub, you know I remember okay in English I think it was ‘E’ because it was you know after . . . it was 1995.”
The report quotes from several letters sent by the SABC human resources department in which Motsoeneng is requested to provide a copy of his outstanding matric certificate. It also quotes an undated response from Motsoeneng in which he indicates that he was still not in possession of the said certificate. He undertook to provide it as soon as he received it.
Now, in law, you commit fraud — a criminal offence — when you unlawfully make a misrepresentation with the intention to defraud that causes actual prejudice or is potentially prejudicial to another.
It would not be a defence to claim that another person had told you to commit fraud, just as it would not be a defence to murder to claim somebody else told you to kill a person. Neither is it a defence to fraud to say that your fraudulent representation was known to be fraudulent by many people.
Where you persist in your misrepresentation (as Motsoeneng did when he promised to provide the “outstanding” matric certificate), it will be easier for the state to prove that you had the intention to defraud.
In law, the actual or potential prejudice need not be financial, but can also be to reputation or dignity. More importantly, it exists where some aspect of public administration is materially inconvenienced.
The fraudulent nature of the misrepresentation was confirmed by a 2003 SABC group internal audit, which confirmed that he had
I would be surprised if a court does not set aside Motsoeneng’s appointment
misrepresented himself by saying he passed matric in 1991. The audit also established that when he applied for an executive producer’s post at Lesedi FM in 2003, a requirement was a degree or diploma in journalism with eight years’ experience in the production of radio current affairs.
Given this evidence and the admission of wrongdoing by Motsoeneng himself, the public protector concluded: “The allegation that Mr Motsoeneng committed fraud by stating in his application form that he had completed matric from Metsimantsho High School is substantiated. By his own admission during his interview, Mr Motsoeneng stated in his application form that he had passed Standard 10 (matric), filled in made-up symbols in the same application form and promised to supply a matric certificate to confirm his qualifications. He did so knowing that he had not completed matric and did not have the promised certificate. His blame of Mrs Swanepoel and the SABC management, stating that they knew he had not passed matric, is disconcerting. If anything, this defence exacerbates his situation as it shows lack of remorse and ethical conduct.”
What seems particularly disconcerting is that Motsoeneng persisted in his dishonest behaviour, first lying to the public protector by denying that he had misrepresented his matric results and then, after being confronted with the employment application, admitting to the fraudulent misrepresentation.
Why have the relevant authorities at the SABC not asked the police to investigate the alleged fraud perpetrated against the SABC by Motsoeneng? Why have so many people, including the previous and current chairs of the SABC board, been eager to support the employment of a confidence trickster like Motsoeneng in one of the most important positions at the corporation?
The previous chair told the public protector in writing that “the SABC perused Mr Motsoeneng’s file and could find no evidence that he misrepresented his qualifications”. This could not have been true, because Motsoeneng left the SABC under a cloud in 2003 after its own group internal audit investigation found that he had misrepresented his qualifications.
Professor Jonathan Burchell states, in his textbook on criminal law: “Fraud is the crime of the liar, the cheat, the confidence trickster.” Why have so many people, some of them of high standing, been prepared to support and protect a “liar”, a “cheat”, a “confidence trickster”? Was there political pressure on them to do so, or did they do so because of their own lack of a moral compass?
Why did the newly appointed “minister of propaganda”, Faith Muthambi, ignore the recommendations by the public protector that the SABC should take disciplinary steps against Motsoeneng for his dishonesty, abuse of power and improper conduct? This failure is almost certainly irrational and I would be surprised if a court does not set aside the decision to confirm Motsoeneng’s appointment.
The failure is in conflict with the stated policy of the ANC to be serious about rooting out maladministration and corruption. The office of the public protector was created to assist public officials, including ministers, to adhere to the law and act in a manner that would enhance trust in public bodies like the SABC. Yet, in the case of Motsoeneng, the minister ignored the findings of the public protector and acted in a way that eroded public trust in the SABC. It cannot be in the ANC’s interest to destroy the SABC’s credibility, because it would then be far less likely to be believed by ordinary voters.
The Presidency issued a carefully worded statement claiming that President Jacob Zuma “has no role to play in the appointment of SABC management or staff and did not play any role in the said appointment”.
This non-denial denial did not state that the president had not communicated his wishes about the desired appointment to Muthambi or had not “requested” her to ensure the appointment of Motsoeneng as chief operating officer.
Whether the appointment was done to comply with Zuma’s wishes is not clear. In any event, the statement by the Presidency does not deny it. What is clear is that Muthambi’s statement that an independent law firm’s legal opinion to the board “cleared Mr Motsoeneng of wrongdoing” and thus rendered the appointment rational is legal nonsense.
In fact, the claim by the minister that the opinion of a private lawyer can trump the official findings of a constitutional body like the public protector may arguably open her to criminal prosecution for contempt of the public protector in contravention of section 9 of the Public Protector Act.
Why would a new minister risk her career to endorse a clearly illegal decision that opens her to criminal prosecution? Could it be that she was merely complying with the request and/or instructions of the person who appointed her? Only the minister and the president would be able to enlighten us.
De Vos lectures in constitutional law at the University of Cape Town. This is an edited version of an article that appeared in dailymaverick.co.za