Mungo Soggot
WHILE the Independent Broadcasting Authority reeled from financial scandal this week, two of its councillors were tasting the joys of New York and Geneva. Co-chair Sebilitso Mokone-Matabane was attending a conference in New York, while councillor Lyndall Shope-Mafole was representing South Africa at the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva.
Both councillors were accused of irregular spending in a draft report by the auditor general on the IBA’s finances. However, they left it to their three colleagues – co-chair Peter de Klerk, William Lane and John Matisonn – to handle the fall-out from the report. They also left them to handle this week’s crucial hearings about the licencing of private television.
De Klerk said Shope-Mafole and Mokone- Matabane arranged their trips well in advance and it would have been awkward to cancel. He said they had not planned to miss the hearings, but these had been changed from their original date. De Klerk added that there was a quorum of councillors in Johannesburg and they were in constant contact with their two colleagues.
De Klerk refused to comment on the auditor general’s draft report, saying he would answer all questions when the final report was released.
Matisonn appeared on television this week to explain that the IBA’s administrators, headed by chief executive officer, Harry Gxaweni, had lost the records of his Diner’s Club business card. He has hired a private accountant to trace copies of the documents.
IBA insiders confirmed this week the council had passed on informal vote of no confidence in Gxaweni.
Gxaweni, formerly an employee of the Transkei Broadcasting Corporation (TBC), has a colourful past. In 1993, he was cleared of allegations of mismanagement by an internal TBC inquiry. In 1992, he was acquitted in the Umtata Magistrate’s Court of stealing a door. In July of that year, he was questioned by the commercial branch in connection with fraud, but no charges were ever laid.