Motsoeneng back at SABC with a blast
# ! ! " $
FORMER SABC chief operating officer and newly appointed group executive for corporate affairs Hlaudi Motsoeneng has actualised his promise to come back stronger from his setbacks at the public broadcaster.
Now armed with ambitious plans to bolster his transformation campaign at the SABC, Motsoeneng has vowed to introduce more empowerment programmes aimed at uplifting freelancers, security guards and black-owned companies. Put in his own words, to bring an
“end to evergreen contracts to make way for real transformation ”.
Motsoeneng, flanked by his compatriots and SABC bosses acting group chief executive officer James Aguma and COO Bessie Tugwana, revealed the SABC was going to introduce new plans to improve the lives of their freelancers by increasing their contracts from three years to five years.
He revealed the SABC would also introduce a policy to allow freelancers to have access to maternity benefits, which will see them entitled to half of their salary when on maternity leave.
Motsoeneng said that the decision was informed by the SABC s
’ decision to contribute towards tackling the country s three
’ multiple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment. We want them to be able to go to “the banks and ask for financial help so they change their lives,” he said. If you want to buy a car, a bank “will be able to assist you when you have a five-year contract, including when you want to buy a house, you stand a better chance to get a bond with a five-year contract than a oneor two-year contract. The time for real transformation “has come, and we are not talking theories.” Motsoeneng also revealed the SABC would be guarded and cleaned by security guards and cleaners who were shareholders in the company. I have already informed them to “form a cooperative, and register it with the SABC because we want to empower them now,” Motsoeneng said. We have been telling companies “offering services to hire the same guards when they are appointed, but we have realised that the best way is to empower them so they own that company themselves. Probably when they leave here “they will be able to get contracts at SAA, Eskom and many other institutions.
” Motsoeneng said the SABC has taken a decision to add more shifts to current freelancers to ensure they work five days in a week in order to increase their salary in line with the SABC policy to restrict their services to the Auckland Parkbased broadcaster. Remember we have restricted “them to work only for the SABC, so we have decided to make sure that they get more extra work to ensure that they work for five days,” he said. Otherwise we would not be fair “on them to tell them they can t work
’ for other broadcasters while we are paying them peanuts. They are going to get more “shifts, and some will also work for both TV and radio to cover for that.”
Motsoeneng revealed the SABC was receiving criticism because it changed its system to ensure that black-owned companies get first priority on major contracts at the SABC. People are criticising Hlaudi and “the SABC because we have changed a lot of things that were benefiting white people only,” he said. There were a lot of evergreen “contracts and some were going for life, and we stopped those and made sure that black-owned companies also have a share for the pie. But there are people who are not “happy with that.”
He said the SABC was now considering viable proposals from black-owned companies that would help bring revenue to the SABC. Even if there s no budget, we will “’ get it somewhere and make sure that we give them a chance,” Motsoeneng said. We are not talking “transformation in theories, but real transformation.
” His ambitious plans came amid reports that he had promised SABC staff members sweeteners as bonus despite the SABC running at a loss of R400-million.