/ 18 January 2017

Five important findings from the leaked SABC report

Faith Muthambi needs to clarify certain issues regarding her role in appointing SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi ­Motsoeneng.
Faith Muthambi needs to clarify certain issues regarding her role in appointing SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi ­Motsoeneng.

The SABC has engaged in illegal conduct and entered into unscrupulous deals, according to a leaked preliminary report by the parliamentary committee looking into the public broadcaster’s conduct in recent years.

The parliamentary ad hoc committee’s working document on the SABC inquiry circulated on social media on Tuesday evening, and its authenticity was confirmed by Democratic Alliance spokesperson Phumzile van Damme, who serves on the committee.

The report is not final, and its contents may yet change.

The committee began its inquiry into the SABC in November after a resolution was taken in the National Assembly to investigate the public broadcaster, and heard evidence presented by interest groups and former SABC staff members.

These are five of the most significant findings in the report:

1. The SABC failed to comply with financial laws
According to the provisional report, the SABC did not adhere to various sections of the Public Finance Management Act when it submitted financial statements for audits.

The public broadcaster also failed to procure goods and services through a “procurement process which is fair, equitable, transparent and competitive”, as required by the Act. The SABC also violated the Act by failing to take disciplinary action against those who were involved in irregular or wasteful expenditure.

2. Political interference
Communications Minister Faith Muthambi has been accused of interfering in the SABC board and recruitment decisions at the SABC.

Witnesses accused Muthambi of applying pressure to appoint Hlaudi Motsoeneng as acting chief operating officer and strong-arming her way into matters of the SABC board despite not having the authority to do so.

Her interference in the board, witnesses said, included her involvement in disciplinary matters of the board.

3. Unlawful dismissals
The report states that evidence heard in testimonies corroborated the public protector’s findings that purging of staff members had been costly to the company.

Testimony from a labour relations manager showed that staff members had been dismissed without due process and that a number of newsroom staff had been dismissed for disagreeing with an editorial decision not to broadcast violent protests

4. ‘Blatant disregard for journalistic values and ethics’
The report states that the presence of the State Security Agency at the SABC created an intimidating work environment for journalists and that senior management interfered in editorial decisions, including the public broadcaster’s policy not to air violent and destructive protests. 

5. The handshakes that shouldn’t have happened
The lack of transparency around the SABC’s deal with MultiChoice – which included the sale of its archives for a channel called SABC Encore and the accessibility of that channel from a pay-TV platform – has proved controversial.

The preliminary report from Parliament’s ad hoc committee suggests that “the deal was unlawful” based on the testimony of former board members who raised legal concerns that the deal violated a section of the Broadcasting Act that relates to the powers and parameters within which the SABC can operate.

Other “suspicious deals” included the SABC’s agreement to distribute the New Age newspaper nationally when the paper faced financial difficulty, and that the SABC had compromised its policy on digital terrestrial television for Multichoice