The battle for control of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has taken a new turn, with some members of the African National Congress (ANC) lobbying for the dissolution of the broadcaster’s board.
The Mail & Guardian has established that some ANC leaders have called for measures to prevent senior public servants from serving as members of the board. It would result in the current board’s automatic dissolution.
Current members who also serve government include Clifford Motsepe, Limpopo’s head of cooperative governance and traditional affairs.
Their removal could leave board meetings without a quorum.
Four of the 12 board members, Barbara Masekela, Magatho Mello, David Niddrie and deputy chairperson Felleng Sekha, quit earlier this year.
According to Eric Kholwane, an ANC member of Parliament’s communications committee, ANC national executive committee member and Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Collins Chabane raised the question about public servants doubling as SABC board members in a closed meeting of the ANC’s parliamentary study group on communications last week.
However, Kholwane denied that the study group discussed the dissolution of the SABC board.
“He [Chabane] raised the issue for broad discussion, in the context of anomalies at the SABC. It wasn’t necessarily directed at the current board members,” he said.
However, an ANC insider, who asked not to be named, suggested that there was a move to have the board dissolved and that the underlying motive was political. Zuma’s allies are worried, the source said, that if suspended chief executive Solly Mokoetle is sacked, the president’s opponents on the board will appoint the new chief executive. In turn, this might lead to the replacement of SABC news chief Phil Molefe by a news executive unsympathetic to Zuma.
Observers pointed out that board member Motsepe was associated with a powerful ANC axis in Limpopo, which includes Premier Cassel Mathale and ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, which President Jacob Zuma regards as a threat.
The ANC’s various factions see the broadcaster as central to the campaign for senior party positions, which will come to a climax at the congress in 2012.
Said one SABC board member: “The reasoning behind the move to dissolve the board is to protect Mokoetle. They know that if the board is disbanded, new people will come in who might not have a problem with him.”
“We all know that Zuma instructed [SABC chairperson] Ben Ngubane to appoint Molefe head of news. Now Mokoetle goes around telling ANC leaders close to Zuma that he’s being targeted because he carried out Ngubane’s instructions.”
The board member said the Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association had Zuma’s ear on SABC matters. The association has repeatedly called for the reinstatement of Mokoetle.
Meanwhile, Mokoetle’s disciplinary hearing, which started this week, was postponed until next week Monday to allow the arbitrator time to decide whether or not the SABC should pay for his legal costs.
While Mokoetle believes the broadcaster should be liable for his legal costs, board members have objected on the basis that his R2-million annual salary was more than enough to pay for them.
Motsepe, Golding and another board member, Numsa president Cedric Gina, recently accused Ngubane of being “ill-disciplined” for speaking out on radio and television against the board’s suspension of Mokoetle.
Chabane refused to comment.
The newspaper version of this story incorrectly stated that that Desmond Golding is the economic adviser to the Public Works Minister. However Golding lost that job after the cabinet reshuffle, which saw former minister Geoff Doidge being removed from the position of minister.