The opposing forces in the SABC boardroom battle became clearer this week: CEO Dali Mpofu is up against board chairperson Khanyi Mkonza and her deputy Christine Qunta, who want him axed, while his supporters include businessman Peter Vundla, President Thabo Mbeki’s former spokesperson Bheki Khumalo and electoral commission chief Pansy Tlakula.
Mpofu’s future, and that of the SABC board, will be on the agenda when the broadcaster appears before Parliament early next month.
The board is deeply split on Mpofu. Mkonza and Qunta accuse him of being an absentee CEO and failing to make key staff appointments, and hold him personally responsible for losing football and cricket broadcasting rights and tabling a loss-making budget for the next financial year.
Vundla, Khumalo and Tlakula believe Mkonza and Qunta are acting impetuously and imperilling the broadcaster by trying to fire Mpofu after less than three years in the job.
Mpofu would not comment this week. His representative, Phumelele Ntombela-Nzimande, said: ‘It’s not a crisis; it’s an unfortunate communication problem.†Mpofu’s team were looking forward to a board meeting that would clarify concerns.
Mkonza said she did not want to debate the issue through the media.
The SABC board, which is stacked with Mbeki supporters and lacks labour and youth representation, is under intense political pressure from the new-look ANC.
The Sunday Times revealed last week that Mkonza has prepared a memorandum outlining the breakdown in her relationship with Mpofu. It alleged she had said that either she or Mpofu must go.
Mpofu reacted by demanding an urgent meeting with the board, saying he was concerned about the leakage of documents.
An SABC statement to this effect was designed to suggest that staff and executives were united behind Mpofu and that the board had its facts wrong.
The board had fully backed the aggressive response of going to court — and losing — when the SABC lost the rights to broadcast PSL games to SuperSport, said SABC insiders.
All board members interviewed this week complained of Mpofu’s absenteeism and his high profile, saying it had been gained at the expense of the management of the broadcaster. Mpofu often appears on the SABC and in other media, and has numerous other business interests, although he has resigned from his leadership of Boxing SA and the board of Proudly South Africa, and is said to have reduced his operational duties to his private portfolio.