Over several weeks since last year, South Africans got to watch top SABC executives, board members and Communications Minister Faith Muthambi face tough questions from MPs. Often the response was “I can’t recall” or “I can’t remember” as documents requested by the committee in line with Parliament’s powers, were withheld due to commercial sensitivity.

It was a tactic previously successfully used when the SABC or its political boss appeared before the communication committee, which in 2015 overturned its own decision to hold Muthambi to account over the removal of three board members through the Companies Act, rather than the Broadcasting Act which governs the SABC. In the factional battles of the ANC, and the contestation around SABC Chief Operating Officer [COO] Hlaudi Motsoeneng, MPs stood by as the public broadcaster effectively limped on with a board that failed legislative muster, having six vacancies amid its 12 posts. And the communications committee was ready to consider amendments to the Broadcasting Act that effectively would have stripped Parliament of any say in SABC board appointments and oversight in favour of a ministerial committee.

That the inquiry by an ad hoc parliamentary committee got under way in the first place was a sign of changing political winds, the public outcry over the banning of visuals of burning Limpopo schools just before the August 2016 local government elections being the last straw. And the SABC thumping its nose at the instruction by the regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa [Icasa], to lift its ban on showing destruction of property during community protests. The Icasa order came after a complaint by three media freedom organisations.

And so the real-life soap opera of the SABC parliamentary inquiry unfolded in the public eye. The leaked ad hoc committee report – a “working document” subject to change in the next few days’ deliberations by MPs – is the result.

It does not mince words. The working document, which Daily Maverick has seen, puts Motsoeneng at the centre of the controversy since 2009 to last year when his appointment, again and for the final time was ruled unlawful in light of the February 2014 public protector report which found he had purged staff, irregularly boosted his salary by R900,000 and misrepresented having matric.

The parliamentary ad hoc committee’s working document links Motsoeneng’s “hasty appointment” to divisions on the SABC board, of which it is scathing. “Testimony from all former members… revealed that the boards were often divided along two lines: those who were concerned with discharging their fiduciary duties and those who were seemingly pursuing their own agenda which was not necessarily in the public broadcaster’s best interest, intent on achieving certain outcomes which were not necessarily in the interest of the public broadcaster.”

In this context, Muthambi played a key and interfering role, as the SABC over the past 10 years battled to stay independent as public broadcaster. “Witnesses suggested that the Minister of Communications often interfered in the board’s business in the guise of holding the SABC accountable to the shareholder and in so doing disregarding the board as the primary mechanism to promote accountability,” says the working document.

It comes down firmly and strongly in favour of editorial independence so that the SABC can serve its public service mandate as the document notes the “blatant disregard of journalistic values and ethics”, MPs were told of during the hearings. “The presence of the State Security Agency within the working environment at the SABC created an environment of fear and intimidation, especially among SABC journalists,” it notes.

On the financial front, the document is equally scathing. The SABC had failed to stay on top of its numbers – between 2014 and 2016 it discovered R3.4-billion in irregular expenditure – and outstanding remains condonation of R5.14-billion of irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure. 

The SABC board failed its fiduciary responsibilities, according to the working document: amid the procurement violations are missing valid tax certificates from suppliers and other supporting documents, while the auditor-general was not provided with all relevant documents.

However, the parliamentary ad hoc committee treads more carefully around the controversial SABC Multi-Choice deal involving the public broadcaster’s archive linked to access to the pay-television platform. The deal was ruled not a merger, and up to scratch, by the Competition Tribunal early last year after media group Caxton, the civil society organisation Save Our SABC and Media Monitoring Africa approached the competition body. While the ad hoc committee working document says it “could not establish with confidence” who now owns these archives, it described the deal as at best “problematic”. The Broadcasting Act in Section 8 requires the SABC to maintain a library and archive of its materials. “The agreement potentially contravenes the provisions of the act too,” the working document says. 

Among its findings and recommendations, yet to be finalised and adopted by the National Assembly before becoming binding, the working document makes it clear anyone who misled Parliament during its inquiry should face the consequences and that steps are urgently needed to ensure the SABC is run according financial and good governance principles and legal prescripts. 

However, investigations into the financial mess and how to fix it, and how to ensure good governance freed from political interference in SABC operations, have been left to an incoming interim board. And the process to determine who could serve on that interim board will get under way only next week before the communications committee. DM

Photo: Hlaudi Motsoeneng (Photo: Steven Lang)