If any proof were needed that the SABC’s management and governing board has failed in its duty to the South African public, that was forthcoming during interviews for a new board in Cape Town this week.
Reluctantly, both outgoing board chair Professor Paulus Zulu and finance subcommittee members Paul Davis and Litha Nyonyha finally admitted under questioning that there was indeed a forensic report on commissioning practices at the SABC.
Zulu confirmed in an oblique way that the audit had uncovered seeming irregularities – suggesting that only “at the final stage, when the findings are findings”, would these be made public. In the meantime, he said, after the report was tabled at last week’s board meeting, management had been instructed to “proceed accordingly”.
Davis was even less satisfactory as an informant. He noted that no evidence of “criminal” behaviour had been uncovered, going on to criticise the audit as “one- sided” because the top executives named as having flouted commissioning procedures had not been interviewed by the investigating auditors.
The report recommended further investigation into alleged irregularities on the part of three senior executives – on the basis of prima facie evidence. And it is a matter of record that the board, of which Davis is a member, ordered that these further investigations be conducted.
Why would the investigation have been ordered if we are to take Davis’s denial at face value? How are we to understand that denial? Is he playing with words? Would the taking of kickbacks fall within or outside his definition of “criminal” behaviour? Or does he believe that the report gave the corporation a clean bill of health apart from a few procedural irregularities?
Nor does the charge of one-sidedness make any sense. While it may be desirable to interview the subject of audits, it is by no means de rigueur. What is at issue is the regularity, or otherwise, of financial and banking records, not questions of motivation. And if the alleged culprits were not interviewed by the board in the course of a scandal which has been many months in the brewing, nor on the basis of a report finalised two weeks ago, then it is surely reasonable to ask: Why not?
The board and its members have a fiduciary responsibility to the South African taxpayer. They have been appointed as trustees of the South African citizenry and custodians of the public money which keeps the SABC running. It is therefore the board’s duty to be transparent and accountable to the public.
One of the uncomfortable responsibilities that comes with this mandate is that of washing dirty laundry in public, so that that the licence-paying public can see both the dirt and the cleansing process. Instead, the board has remained silent, giving the impression that, had at least some information not been dragged out of members seeking reappointment to a new SABC board, the information might remained under wraps. Even after the portfolio committee’s interrogations, the public has still not been informed of the nature of the irregularities alleged.
As in the case of justice, the directors of public corporations must not only exercise their duties but be seen to be doing so. In this the SABC board has failed lamentably.
Nagging questions
The decision this week to release from jail the African National Congress activists known as the Eikenhof Three came 10 months after this newspaper questioned the judicial wisdom of continuing to keep them behind bars despite overwhelming new evidence pointing to their innocence.
We questioned why the state should still be keeping them in jail when their fingerprints were never found on the hijacked vehicle used to carry out the grisly attack. We found it strange that the police had failed to produce five witnesses in court who had identified Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Apla) operatives as the real perpetrators.
We found it extremely depressing that the three were still imprisoned despite police discovery of a secret Apla report detailing how its cadres had carried out the attack. The three were left to languish in jail even when Apla claimed responsibility for the massacre. The Apla commander who claims to have ordered the massacre, Phila Dolo, was arrested for an attack unrelated to the Eikenhof incident, and the police discovered in his possession the AK-47 used at Eikenhof.
The decision by the Gauteng Director of Public Prosecutions, Silas Ramaite, to drop charges against them was an honourable acknowledgment of their innocence.
What is now left is for the state to begin fresh investigations into allegations of deliberate police conspiracy to falsely implicate the ANC in the massacre of white citizens.
The state should probe why the prosecution failed to produce crucial evidence during the trial which could have been favourable to the accused. The public ought to know who, if anyone, was the “recipient” of a R250 000 police reward offered for information that secured the Eikenhof convictions.
Claims by one of the key state witnesses that he gave false testimony because the police promised him the reward if he lied against the three also need investigation.
ONLY AFTER THESE NAGGING QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED AND THE EIKENHOF CONSPIRACY UNRAVELLED WILL THIS MATTER BE LAID TO REST.