Hlaudi: How minister conned SABC board
Details of last-minute meeting emerge — as Zuma moves to distance himself from the highly controversial, and possibly illegal, appointment
COMMUNICATIONS Minister Faith Muthambi lied to the SABC board when she pushed through the permanent appointment of Hlaudi Motsoeneng as the public broadcaster’s chief operating officer this week.
Highly placed sources said that Muthambi had ignored the fact that no formal settlement had been reached with the previous chief operating officer, Mvuzo Mbebe, who had successfully brought an interdict against the SABC in 2008 preventing the broadcaster from filling the position.
Mbebe was offered the job in 2007, but a previous SABC board overturned the decision.
Since then, the broadcaster and the Department of Communications have been entangled in negotiations.
This week Mbebe confirmed that his lawyers wrote to Muthambi regarding his settlement.
Mbebe had agreed to a settlement proposed by Muthambi’s predecessor, Yunus Carrim, but this was never finalised — and Carrim was left out of President Jacob Zuma’s new cabinet after the May elections.
If no deal exists with Mbebe, Muthambi is in contempt of court for ignoring the interdict.
Muthambi, who has remained defiant over the appointment — despite a scathing public protector report into Motsoeneng’s actions as acting chief operating officer — said this week that a legal opinion had cleared Motsoeneng of wrongdoing.
But yesterday, Titus Mchunu, of Mchunu Attorneys, distanced his firm from the opinion, saying it had not advised the SABC board on Motsoeneng’s latest appointment.
“We don’t have instructions on the appointment of Mr Motsoeneng. We have instructions to deal with the [public protector’s] report and advise the board.”
Mchunu said the firm had dealt with Motsoeneng’s initial permanent employment in 1995 as a junior reporter. It discovered that, at the time of his employment, he did disclose not having a matric certificate.
He said the firm was in possession of two affidavits signed by senior managers at the SABC confirming that Motsoeneng did not lie about his qualification in 1995.
Asked about Motsoeneng’s admission when he was interviewed by the public protector that he lied about having a matric when he applied for the chief operating officer post, Mchunu said he was not involved in that aspect.
“We have not advised the SABC on the appointment of Mr Motsoeneng as its COO.”
According to SABC insiders, the protector’s report — which the broadcaster has an August 17 deadline to respond to — was on the agenda to be discussed at the board meeting, but it was ignored.
Instead, the three-hour meeting focused on Motsoeneng’s appointment, which split the board, with two members, Professor Bongani Khumalo and Vusumuzi Mavuso, abstaining after they spoke out against Motsoeneng’s appointment.
The board members who voted in favour were chairwoman Zandile Tshabalala, her deputy, Professor Mbulaheni Obert Maghuve, Nomvuyo Mhlakaza, Ndivhoniswani Tshidzumba, Leah Khumalo and Hope Zinde.
Three board members, Ronnie Lubisi, Krish Naidoo and Rachel Kalidass, voted against the appointment.
It was Tshabalala who engineered Motsoeneng’s appointment — completely ignoring public protector Thuli Madon- sela’s report.
Tshabalala’s battle for Motsoeneng’s appointment came minutes after a two-hour meeting with Muthambi at her SABC office before the board meeting on Monday night.
SABC insiders said Muthambi arrived at Auckland Park just after 7pm and was locked in the meeting with Tshabalala — delaying the board meeting, which had been scheduled to start at that time.
Tshabalala joined the board after 9pm and reported to it that Muthambi had informed her that the Mbebe issue had been resolved and they could go ahead and appoint a permanent chief operating officer.
Tshabalala also came armed with a letter from Motsoeneng in which he praised himself and explained why he deserved the permanent appointment.
“She read out a letter Hlaudi wrote to her and the minister saying what a great person he is.
“In the letter, Hlaudi attributes all the success of the SABC to himself . . . like there is no one else working there,” said a board member.
Some of the “achievements” Motsoeneng listed in his letter included the “financial turnaround” of the SABC and the broadcaster’s digital migration.
The meeting finished at about 11.30pm and Muthambi was called and informed of the decision.
“She said she’ll apply her mind,” said an insider.
Muthambi confirmed the appointment the following day.
The minister this week denied that she had misled the public and the SABC board on the Mbebe issue.
“I have in my possession a letter from Mbebe’s attorneys confirming that Mbebe has accepted the settlement. The SABC has noted in one of its resolutions that the matter has been closed, therefore I did not misled [sic] the nation,” said Muthambi.
She insisted that there was an agreement in place with Mbebe, which cleared the way for her to go ahead with the appointment.
Muthambi said she could not comment further as Madonsela had announced that she would investigate Motsoeneng’s appointment.
Contacted for comment, Tshabalala said she was abroad and requested written questions. She never responded to them.
Motsoeneng’s appointment has also highlighted fissures in the Zuma camp.
Muthambi has yet to explain to Luthuli House whose interests she was representing when she appointed Motsoeneng, but it is understood that the latter — who admitted to falsifying his matric qualifications and filling in “made-up symbols” when initially applying for the chief
operating officer job — has Zuma’s blessings.
Motsoeneng trades on his claimed close links to Zuma and drops the president’s name at will.
Yesterday, however, Zuma’s spokesman, Mac Maharaj, said the president had “no role to play in the appointment of SABC management or staff and did not play any role in the said appointment. “Reports to the con- trary are inaccurate and unfortunate.”
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe distanced the party from the appointment, questioning the board and Muthambi’s logic.
“We were not told . . . maybe that ministry will inform us when [it is] ready for that. All we are saying is that . . . the person should meet the basic requirements of the job.”
He added that the party would have expected such a senior position to have been advertised and its “concern is that we never saw an advert”.
The South African Communist Party also weighed in, condemning the appointment.
But its Young Communist League’s provincial leader in Gauteng, Nomvuyo Mhlakaza — who is also an SABC board member — was among those who pushed for Motsoeneng’s appointment at the board meeting.
Mhlakaza is the wife of Buti Manamela, the deputy minister in the Presidency and Young Communist League secretary. SACP boss and Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande’s wife, Phumelele Ntombela-Nzimande, was the original complainant to Madonsela.
She claimed that she had been hounded out of her job at the SABC following her questioning of Motsoeneng’s dodgy qualifications.
IN appointing Hlaudi Motsoeneng the SABC’s permanent chief operating officer this week, the public broadcaster’s board and Communications Minister Faith Muthambi have thumbed their noses at public protector Thuli Madonsela — and raised a collective middle finger to all South Africans.
Instead of acting on the recommendations made in Madonsela’s damning report on the failure of governance at the broadcaster, the board, with the minister’s blessing, has signalled that it intends digging in and defending the deeply flawed Motsoeneng.
The question is why? What could justify the immeasurable damage this sorry saga is inflicting on a public broadcaster already in danger of losing what little credibility it has left?
It must be something significant — political pressure from the very top of the government, perhaps — for it to appoint a man the public protector has branded a liar and a fraud.
Did Muthambi ratify the board’s decision at the behest of President Jacob Zuma, who is known to be very close to board chairwoman and staunch Motsoeneng defender Zandile Tshabalala?
It is clear that the ANC has come to regard the SABC — which now reports to what critics have described as a ministry of propaganda — as a key weapon in its arsenal as it tries to recast the president’s second term in a more positive light than his scandal-plagued first five years in office.
It is worth taking another look at Madonsela’s now five-monthold report to remind ourselves just how serious her findings against Motsoeneng really are.
Although many people are im-
What could justify the appointment of a man the public protector has branded a liar and a fraud?
plicated in maladministration in the report — including the disgraced former communications minister, Dina Pule, and former SABC CEO Lulama Mokhobo — the most damning findings are against Motsoeneng.
The report found he was appointed irregularly to the SABC and committed fraud by repeatedly lying about his qualifications to advance his career. He was promoted several times despite having no qualifications — not even a matric certificate — and lying about this.
Indeed, he would never have been appointed to the SABC in 1995 if he had not lied about his qualifications to get the job, said Madonsela.
He committed fraud by stating on his job application form that he had completed matric and by filling in made-up symbols to support this lie.
His employment file conveniently “disappeared” while he was denying that he had falsified his qualifications.
Madonsela found, too, that Motsoeneng received salary increases that were in violation of the SABC’s personnel rules — rising from R1.5-million to R2.4-million in one year — and that he irregularly hiked the salaries of various staff members, including a shop steward, resulting in an increase to the salary bill of more than R29-million.
The public protector said that the communications minister — at the time it was Yunus Carrim — had to take “urgent steps” to permanently fill the chief operating officer position. She could not have been thinking of Motsoeneng when she said that whoever filled this post had to be “suitably qualified”.
Indeed, she said in her report that the SABC board had to take “appropriate disciplinary action” against Motsoeneng for his “dishonesty relating to the misrepresentation of his qualifications, abuse of power and improper conduct”.
Instead of punishing him, the board rewarded him by making his appointment permanent. Given this behaviour, it is fair to assume that the SABC board under Tshabalala’s chairwomanship is not going to take Madonsela’s findings and recommendations particularly seriously. It has until August 15 to respond to her report.
We should expect an attempt at a whitewash by the SABC. Already, on Thursday, Muthambi told reporters at a post-cabinet briefing that Motsoeneng was “cleared of all wrongdoing” by an unnamed “independent” law firm appointed by the SABC board.
She said she agreed to his permanent appointment only after the law firm’s report was made available to her.
“The SABC board and [I] are satisfied that the report by the appointed firm of attorneys has cleared Motsoeneng of any wrongdoing and therefore there was nothing before me that suggested that I should not confirm the appointment,” she said.
This week, SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago told Sapa that the broadcaster’s requirement to reply to the public protector’s report was unrelated to Motsoeneng’s permanent appointment.
“The public protector has nothing to do with this. The two are not together. I don’t know how the two are related,” he said, adding that the report stip-
There was nothing before me that suggested that I should not confirm the appointment
ulated only that the position had to be filled, not who should fill it. That is disingenuous.
Kganyago’s comments came just days after Tshabalala told parliament’s portfolio committee on communications that the SABC had no basis to suspend Motsoeneng because he “performs” in his job.
Notwithstanding Madonsela’s long list of findings against him, there are other reasons that South Africans should be concerned about Motsoeneng’s con- tinued tenure at the SABC.
The broadcaster remains the primary news and information source for the millions of South Africans who cannot or do not read the print media and who do not have easy and affordable access to the internet. They rely on the SABC for the full picture.
So, when Motsoeneng, who has management oversight of one of the most important news organisations in South Africa, says journalists should be licensed — a notion that would find favour in authoritarian states such as Zimbabwe — we should all be deeply worried.
His remarks come at a distressing time for those who believe a strong and independent media is vital to the health of South Africa’s democracy. Not only are newspapers struggling to recover lost revenues as their readers move from print to digital platforms — making it more difficult to finance quality journalism — but one of the biggest newspaper groups, Independent News & Media, is looking increasingly vulnerable. Iqbal Survé, Independent’s new proprietor (and part-time government toady), risks driving his titles into the ground by firing or chasing away his best editorial talent.
And it is hard to draw any conclusion from Zuma’s recent decision to split the department of communications in two — creating a new Communications Department and a Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services — other than that it was needed to establish an information ministry tasked with improving his and his administration’s tarnished image.
That the SABC and the government’s communication arm, the GCIS, now sit alongside each other and report to the same cabinet minister is alarming for those who subscribe to the view that the independence of the public broadcaster should be vigorously defended and that the SABC should not be abused by the government and the ruling party as a tool for propaganda, as it was under the Nats.
Of course, Zuma’s man at the SABC, with his policy of “sunshine news” will no doubt see absolutely nothing wrong with the new arrangement.
It should be abundantly clear by now that Motsoeneng has not been installed at the SABC to serve the public’s interests. Rather, he is there to serve — and answer to — a much narrower constituency.
McLeod is editor of technology news website TechCentral. Find him on Twitter @mcleodd