Mungo Soggot
INDEPENDENT Broadcasting Authority (IBA) councillor Lyndall Shope-Mafole insisted this week that she and her colleagues have done nothing wrong and have nothing for which to apologise.
She was responding to the auditor general’s final report on the IBA, presented to Parliament on Wednesday, which criticised the organisation’s dire financial controls and misuse of company credit cards and travel allowances. The report did not single out individual miscreants.
Within hours, the IBA councillors named in the auditor general’s interim report, leaked last month, called a press conference and said they would not resign.
Shope-Mafole – one of the IBA councillors accused in the interim report of using her credit card for R70 000 private purchases and of enjoying an excessively expensive lifestyle at the taxpayers’ expense – said there had been many misconceptions about the councillors’ use of their credit cards. “I just think it is not looked at in its proper context. We had a policy which said that if we use them [the cards] for private purposes we have to pay it back.”
She said many other organisations had similar systems, but that the IBA’s policy had been changed last month.
She denied a statement in the auditor general’s interim report that the council had ruled in August 1994 that the cards were meant for business use only.
“Nobody can say there was any unauthorised use of credit cards,” Shope-Mafole said. “The use of credit cards was done in terms of a policy that was agreed to.”
Shope-Mafole said that she and other councillors had merely borrowed money from the taxpayer temporarily. As far as the tardy reimbursement of private credit card expenditure was concerned, she simply did not have the time. “If you put it in context … we never had time.”
She showed a file of cheques she had made out to the IBA saying, “Nobody had to tell me to do this. I did it myself.”
The IBA’s council has yet to decide on the fate of its CEO, Harris Gxaweni, who has received a vote of no-confidence from staff. The original complaints by staff about IBA profligacy and mismanagement triggered the auditor general’s probe.
Shope-Mafole said it was possible that Gxaweni would not be fired. She said he had arrived at the IBA when there were barely any policies in place and that the council could not blame everything on him. “As the council we are the final people who are accountable for everything related to the IBA. We can’t go and blame the CEO.”
She added that no councillor had exceeded the limits imposed on their credit cards. “It could be open to abuse. I could buy Manhattan,” she joked. Asked whether the IBA owed an apology to taxpayers, she said: “Not really in the sense that we have misused money … To apologise for what?”
Shope-Mafole said the main lesson to be learnt from the report was that the IBA had to devote more time to setting up necessary policies. She defended her trips to Geneva, where she represents South Africa at the International Telecommunications Union. “For me the IBA is the primary task that the people of South Africa have given me. For me, I dedicate a lot of time, energy and emotion to it.
“However, the IBA is one small element in the overall building of South Africa. I believe I have tasks that are broader than just the IBA. I have other tasks as a citizen and as a person who has been actively involved in the struggle.”
Asked about her grilling in the press over the interim auditor general’s report while she was overseas, she said: “I have thought of suing, but I haven’t had the time.”
The IBA’s Staff Representative Committee was unavailable for comment.