SABC scrambles to explain boss’ dubious R877k bonus

THE South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) last week had to scramble to explain the discrepancy between a whopping R877 000 bonus for its acting group chief executive officer (CEO) Nomsa Philiso and the reason she claimed to have received the money.

The bonus prompted questions in Parliament this last week, but the public broadcaster was adamant that she earned it through sheer hard work.

The SABC’s latest annual report revealed that Philiso earned a total of R3.37m in the year ended March 2016.

This included bonuses and commissions to the tune of R877 000.

This while she was one of the public broadcaster’s salespeople — long before she became its head honcho.

Acting SABC chief financial officer Thabile Dlamini told Parliament this week that the bonus came from an incentive scheme in the SABC’s commercial enterprises division, which incentivises staff who meet their targets.

However, while Dlamini told MPs that Philiso earned the money for heading the commercial enterprises division, City Press has established that during the period for which she received the bonus, she was not heading the division.

Philiso was only appointed as the group executive for commercial enterprises in April 2015.

Confronted with this information on Friday, SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago explained to City Press that before Philiso’s appointment as group executive for commercial enterprises in April 2015, she was the general manager for sales operations, a unit within the commercial enterprises division – thus making her one of about 300 employees who qualified for the incentive scheme in the unit.

DA spokesperson Phumzile van Damme, who is a member of the parliamentary portfolio committee on communications, had wanted to know how the SABC could pay a senior executive a bonus or commission of almost R1m while it was in serious financial trouble.

“That division has about 300 employees who participate in the scheme,” said Dlamini.

“The way the scheme is structured is that, at the beginning of the year, we decide what the annual target is that we are chasing, which is a commercial target.”

Dlamini went on to tell the portfolio committee that the team of 300 employees — including the executive heads of the division — were incentivised for meeting the target using a specific formula to calculate “the overperformance that has to be paid out”.

She said this was how the market operated in terms of other broadcasters as well.

She explained Philiso’s bonus as “an overlap of the 2014/15 fiscal, which was a good year in terms of performance for commercial enterprises”.

“She was heading the division at the time,” added Dlamini in a statement not challenged by MPs, but is inconsistent with her appointment in April 2015. — Sapa