South Africa: South Africa Communiqué Update SABC boss suspended

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Group Chief Executive Officer, Solly Mokoetle, has been suspended. On 27 August 2010 the broadcasters’ board took a decision to suspend Mokoetle following a disastrous leadership to the beleaguered public broadcaster.

Mokoetle is alleged to have strongly backed and supported the Chair of the SABC, Dr Ben Ngubane’s serious breaches of corporate governance at the broadcaster. He is accused of implementing the Chair’s illegal unilateral appointment of the Head of News thus throwing the SABC into a serious, unnecessary, corporate governance crisis.

Further, it is alleged that Mokoetle has operated unilaterally (with only the authority of the Chair) and without accounting to the rest of the Board on a number of important occasions. In a leaked memo from Board members to the Minister of Communications on 8 June 2010, it appears that Mokoetle attended a conference in China on behalf of the Chair of the Board, days before the opening of the World Cup, on an issue not vital to the SABC’s core mandate, and without appointing anyone to act in his absence.

In addition to these specific allegations it appears that Mokoetle has failed overall to deliver on his detailed performance targets clearly laid out in his performance contract with the SABC Board. To date, the SABC still does not have a “turn around” strategy in place. Further, he does not appear to have implemented any cost cutting measures at the cash-strapped broadcaster – and it appears that there was significant fruitless and wasteful expenditure at the SABC over the period of the FIFA World Cup. This is in terms of the purchase of World Cup tickets, without ensuring direct benefits to the SABC, the hiring of the Sandton Convention Centre, at excessively high rates, as a broadcast venue and bonuses awarded to staff. //End//

-September 03, 2010 by MISA

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Source: www.misa.org (received via e-mail alert on 03.09.10)