Jacquie Golding-Duffy
A CABAL of about 15 staffers at the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) have hauled the management of the regulator before the public protector for an investigation into allegations of financial mismanagement and misappropriation of taxpayers’ funds.
A memorandum from this group, which outlines grievances and alleged malpractices by some top IBA executives, will be handed to Public Protector Selby Baqwa and Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting Jay Naidoo on Friday.
The chief executive of the IBA, Harris Gxaweni, has dismissed the allegations appearing in the report as exaggerated.
The staffers – who refuse to be named for fear of reprisals – say they are disillusioned with the IBA’s top personnel and have witnessed enough mismanagement to warrant an investigation. They say they want to weed out corruption, but are afraid to take action within the IBAitself.
The report states that “the authority’s executive management has fallen into the trap of thriving on chaos by ignoring [the need] to run the organisation on strict business ethics and glaring professional negligence by senior management. This is revealed by gross incompetence, nepotism and downright arrogance with disastrous consequences.”
The report says the regulator, one of 38 government commissions – with an annual budget of R37-million, is “poorly managed, wasteful, inefficient, bureaucratic and is failing the South African taxpayer”.
Staffers told the Mail & Guardian they were “concerned” with the irresponsible nature of senior executive management (such as the co-chairs) and some council members as their behaviour “could cause the collapse of the authority unless they changed their attitudes”.
The accusations come at a time when the IBA has gained credibility following its successful sale of six of the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s regional radio stations.
But the move by staffers is in line with several media reports which have, during the past year, highlighted alleged extravagances by some IBA councillors – five star hotels, travelling business class when taking local and overseas trips, unauthorised or excessive use of company credit cards for personal expenses, to name a few; a R250 000 fraud scandal; and, most recently, reports that Gxaweni is being investigated by police on an attempted murder charge.
However, an IBA representative said the Transkei police had decided to close the docket against Gxaweni and that he was, in fact, testifying against the complainant, currently standing trial in the former homeland.
Also, maladministration charges against Gxaweni during his stint as corporate secretary of the Transkei Broadcasting Corporation during 1993 were dropped, the representative said, adding that Gxaweni sued the state for malicious prosecution, scoring R25 000.
Gxaweni is the prime target of the staff members’ report to the public protector. His appointment in May 1995 as chief administrative officer of the IBA has “caused many internal problems”, they said.
Asked about this, Gxaweni pointed out that his official title is chief executive officer, a title change which took place shortly after his appointment.
The reports refers to Gxaweni’s management style as “laid back, arrogant, despotic and autocratic … based on prejudicial uninformed bias [which] has cost the authority’s corporate image dearly”.
Gxaweni is also accused of “scrupulously manipulating departmental management” and avoiding “putting in place properly structured organisational policies that govern the day-to-day running of the authority’s financial and administrative processes as defined by the [Broadcasting] Act.”
Gxaweni said the IBA structures were all in place and further enhanced this year with the establishment of eight provincial offices. “By all accounts, we have a well- structured organisation designed for optimum performance within the constraints of limited resources,” he said.
Gxaweni said it was difficult to deal with “vague allegations”, and suspected that it was a “few aggrieved persons who were told to pull up their socks” that were now “venting their views in a rather exaggerated way to the media”.
The M&G spoke to several IBA staffers who expressed concern about the high labour turnover at the authority. In the report, staffers say they want reasons why seven people resigned followed up by full investigations into individual cases.
Staffers also question why the IBA “accepted their respective resignations without proper replacements, exit interviews and smooth handover”.
The resignations included: Stephen Lepita (former head of the finance and administration department), Andr Hatting (former manager of purchasing and office administration), Geraldine Chaplog-Louw (former manager of financial accounting), Glen Marques (former legal department head), Toto Ndziba (former head of the finance and administration department), Charlotte Mampane (special assistant to the chief executive officer) and J Thekiso (former recruitment officer).
The IBA is further attacked for its “unprofessional financial management of financial resources”, with the authority’s finance and administration departments “so badly structured to an extent that the authority is vulnerable to shrinkage and fraud practices”.
The report highlights concerns by staffers that there is a lack of internal control and efficient financial and cash management and a lack of transparency during auditing.
Finally, the report lashes out at the IBA management for “deliberate lack of proper financial accounting, in-house audits and proper financial management practice” causing “the government, Parliament and other stakeholders” to be repeatedly misinformed.