SABC bosses run out of places to hide

THE only remaining nonexecutive member of the SABC board, Mbulaheni Maguvhe, on Friday lost in his court bid to stop parliament from probing the collapse of corporate governance at the public broadcaster.

Judge Siraj Desai dismissed Maguvhe’s application and ordered that Maguvhe — who still calls himself chairman of the board even though the rest of the nonexecutives have quit — pay the costs of the application.

Hopefully, the court ruling will discourage others who serve in public institutions from engaging in litigation at taxpayers’ expense just to avoid accountability.

Maguvhe’s attitude and the SABC executive’s reported refusal to give information to MPs show disdain for parliament’s watchdog role. They suggest that those who run the broadcaster treat it as their personal enterprise and do not see any need to account to public representatives.

Unfortunately, they are cheered on in all of this by a small but powerful faction in the ANC.

Despite clear evidence that Hlaudi Motsoeneng has been a disaster for the public broadcaster and that its recovery will not be possible with him as one of its top executives, the ANC Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal actually believes he has done so tremendously well that he deserves promotion into the cabinet.

The league’s provincial secretary, Thanduxolo Sabela, told a gathering of party supporters that they would lobby for Motsoeneng to become a member of the ANC national executive committee as this would pave the way for him to one day get a cabinet post.

This flies in the face of ANC policies, which dictate that one should have been in other party leadership structures for several years before making it onto the NEC.

But perhaps Sabela knows that his faction, if it wins next year’s ANC elective conference, will change the rules to allow Motsoeneng and other supporters of President Jacob Zuma to assume ministerial posts in the next administration.

For ordinary South Africans, what should be worrying about this move is that it shows just how ignorant some of the important power brokers within the ruling party are of the devastation caused by Motsoeneng.

Just this week, new reports emerged about rapidly falling listenership figures for one of its traditional cash cows, Metro FM.

The station has been losing listeners in droves as a direct result of Motsoeneng’s decree that all SABC stations play 90% local music, regardless of their target audience.

Now the ANC Youth League believes that such a reckless executive, one who prefers populism to well-researched decisions, should be promoted to the cabinet.

This stands in stark contrast to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s description of the kind of leader South Africa needs.

Speaking this week at a memorial service for Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Ramaphosa said South Africa needed leaders who put the people ahead of their own needs; those who “put the aspirations of South Africans first”.

Given that Maguvhe is doing all in his power to frustrate efforts to fix the SABC, he is clearly not what South Africa needs at the helm of that institution.

Nor is Motsoeneng what South Africa requires, be it at the SABC or in the cabinet.

They are what is keeping South Africa from realising its potential as a young democracy.