Three directors of the struggling TV station’s holding company are to share R4-million
Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane
It will be a grim Christmas for e.tv staffers when, for the third year running, they go off on vacation without a bonus.
But the three executive directors of e.tv’s loss-making holding company, Hoskens Consolidated Investments (HCI) Johnny Copelyn, Mohammed Ahmed and e.tv’s CEO Marcel Golding have received performance bonuses amounting to R4-million in the past financial year. It is not clear how this handsome windfall was divided among the three. If divided up equally, the three have received R1,33-million each.
“It has not been disclosed who got what but we expressed what we felt at the HCI annual general meeting [this week] that the bonuses are excessive,” says Clifford Elk, head of the Mineworkers Investment Company (MIC), which has a 14% stake in Hoskens.
Hoskens’s losses in the past financial year were R203,4-million. These losses apparently derive from Hosken’s interest of 50,1% in Midi TV, which runs e.tv. Elk says that nevertheless Hoskens has done well, compared with other investment companies.
Even so, MIC wants to sell its 14% share in Hoskens because, according to Elk, it “wants to diversify its own portfolio”. He added that the share would not be easy to sell because MIC had to ensure e.tv remains a black empowerment outfit.
The MIC was established in 1995 by the Mineworkers Investment Trust to promote black economic advancement and empowerment and encourage workplace transformation via employment equity plans.
Last week the Mail & Guardian reported that e.tv staff are bitterly unhappy with labour relations in the company. Complaints centre in particular on the management style of Golding and e.tv’s channel director Quraysh Patel, the lack of medical aid and pension benefits and now end-of-year bonuses.
Following last week’s story the M&G understands that the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is poised to step in amid the furore.
A union insider says that e.tv staffers who complained to the M&G about bitter labour relations at the company have requested a Cosatu affiliate, the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), to intervene. The CWU has since had many requests from e.tv staff to start unionising at the company.
A Cosatu source told the M&G: “We are very concerned about what we have heard about the happenings in e.tv. We don’t want their project to fail. They have reported much better than all other broadcasters on the anti-privatisation strike, for instance. But what is happening now flies in the face of what was supposed to be a workers’ investment and empowerment company. Something will have to be done about the situation.”
The president of Cosatu, Willy Madisha, the M&G understands, is considering scheduling a meeting with the e.tv bosses at the centre of labour relations controversies.
The plan, says the unionist, is for senior Cosatu leaders to meet former unionists such as Golding and Copelyn but also Patel, a lawyer to put pressure on them. “It’s ironic that just when we have got workers’ rights on the right foot at the SABC, now e.tv is doing this.”
An e.tv journalist said this week: “This looks like one of those sad, typi-cal examples of a struggling company being sucked dry by greedy directors and their loyalists.
“I wonder how they will explain the radical increase in their self- approved salaries and bonuses to the unionists on whose backs they got the e.tv licence. I’d like to know what Madisha thinks of these guys awarding themselves performance bonuses after suffering a massive loss, while their staff are struggling under the worst kind of management and facing another grim Christmas.”
Awarding massive performance bonuses in a loss-making company is not good corporate governance, says the Johannesburg Securities Exchange’s Noah Greenhill, speaking in his personal capacity.
He said most companies have a remuneration committee, including non-executive directors, which decides performance-based bonuses.
A source formerly senior in et.v’s corporate structure said that “the problem is they [Golding and Patel] are a law unto themselves. There is a remuneration committee to decide on issues such as salaries and performance-based bonuses but in essence it is just a self-serving committee.”
He added that two years ago there was a fallout between MIC and Golding and since then MIC has wanted to sell its stake.
In an interview punctuated by high-volume invective, Golding this week commented: “Hoskens and e.tv are two different companies; you can’t extrapolate the performance of Hoskens from the performance of e.tv.” He claims Hoskens has performed exceptionally well, but declined to comment on the lack of an end-of-year bonus for e.tv staff.
“Write what you want to write. You’re not interested in the facts. There are no two sides to the story just the facts.”