The SABC board has taken over responsibility for drafting a turnaround plan for the ailing public broadcaster — and the upshot could be reducing staff to cut the wage bill.
This development follows the board’s launching of disciplinary action against SABC chief executive Solly Mokoetle, which could result in him being fired.
By stepping into the breach, however, the board is courting further conflict with SABC chairperson Ben Ngubane, who this week accused it of “micro-managing”.
In its submission to Parliament this week, the board said that unless a comprehensive turnaround strategy was developed and implemented in the next three to four months, the SABC would not be able to make repayments on loans secured against a government guarantee.
It has asked Mokoetle, whom it accuses of dereliction of duty in failing to deliver a turnaround strategy by March this year, to give reasons why he should not be suspended.
In the meantime, board members told the M&G the SABC’s turnaround planning unit was now working with its own subcommittee. The board had also brought in a strategic manager to work in the human resources department to assess how to reduce staff and decrease the wage bill.
The national treasury gave the broadcaster a bailout in the form of a R1,47-billion government guarantee, coupled with strict conditions, including turning around the SABC’s finances.
A R1-billion draw-down was made immediately available to settle urgent outstanding financial obligations, but the remaining R473-million is still subject to the broadcaster presenting clear revenue targets and cost-cutting measures.
However, Ngubane told the M&G it would be impossible for the board to take over the formulation of a turnaround strategy and it should not try to “micro-manage” the corporation.
“The board is destroying the organisation. How can it deal with the issue of a head count without cooperating with management?” Ngubane asked.
He said he had been informed that some of the severance payments could come out of the surplus in the corporation’s pension fund, but a proper evaluation of staff and the wage bill would have to be conducted. “I can’t see how a board of non-executives could do this job without working full time,” he said. “Maybe this is what they want to do.”
‘Serious unsubstantiated allegations’
At a meeting of Parliament’s communications committee this week, which was closed to the media, Ngubane gave an eight-page presentation “on the dysfunctionality of the board”.
Some board members were angered by “serious unsubstantiated allegations” he allegedly made against them at the meeting, including claims that board members’ expenses had not been properly scrutinised and that they had sought jobs for themselves and friends.
Ngubane did not name specific board members, but some of them said that it was obvious who he was referring to and that his claims amounted to defamation.
Ngubane hit back, saying that everything he had said in Parliament had been “the truth”.
During the closed session, he said he had called for a Parliamentary hearing to investigate why the board was dysfunctional.
Ngubane denied asking for the committee meeting to be closed to the media, saying that he had merely pointed out that as the board had asked Mokoetle to give reasons why he should not be suspended, there were legal implications that had to be considered.
“It would have been difficult for Solly to make his presentation to the committee and we had to consider the legal issues of his case,” he said.
The parliamentary meeting had been “inconclusive” because an interim court order halted proceedings, said Ngubane.
Following an urgent application by the South African National Editors’ Forum, the Western Cape High Court ordered that the meeting could not proceed behind closed doors.
Serious governance crisis
After the meeting was cut short by the court order, Ngubane told the M&G that he believed it was the “quality of the board members” that had led to tension with him and Mokoetle.
Though industry analysts have hailed the board members as highly skilled specialists in their fields, he said he found it painful that the board had become dysfunctional.
“I came here wanting to work. I am the chairman of the Land Bank board. I have done very well there and get on with all the board members and the chief executive,” said Ngubane. “I don’t have any of the issues I am experiencing with this board.”
However, in its submission, the board told Parliament that Ngubane’s irregular appointment of Phil Molefe as head of news was no more than “a symptom of a far more serious governance crisis precipitated by the chairperson”.
It said Ngubane had since derailed several attempts by it to relaunch the process of appointing a head of news.
While acknowledging an “irrevocable breakdown of trust” with Ngubane, it remained committed to achieving a successful, financially sustainable public broadcaster.
“It is confident that if it is able to remove the obstacles in its path, it will be in a position — albeit belatedly — to provide the direction, strategic leadership and environment which will enable the staff of the corporation to turn the SABC around and reclaim its position as a national icon,” it said.