Advertisers should boycott SABC - R2K

26 September 2016

Cape Town – Lobby group Right2Know has called for advertisers to boycott the public broadcaster until its “crisis” has been dealt with.

The crisis at the SABC was unprecedented, R2K said in a statement on Monday.

“The SABC is expected to post a loss of R500 million this year. Rampant financial mismanagement is to blame and can be seen in, among other things,  the massively inflated salary bill for top management and the recent ego-stroking ‘Thank You SABC Concert’ that turned out to be an enormous and costly flop.”

On Wednesday, R2K would march to the offices of several top SABC advertisers and call on them to pull their adverts from the public broadcaster.

“Under these circumstances, to be advertising with the SABC is to encourage gross mismanagement and unlawfulness.”

It wanted a well-funded public broadcaster with the resources to fulfil its mandate, based on accountability and transparency.

It could not accept a situation where the broadcaster was subject to the whims of a “petty narcissist”, COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who continued to rule with “absolute impunity”.

“Hlaudi is where he is simply because he is so eager to lick the boots of his political masters and use the SABC to spin their 'good stories'.”

Topping the R2K’s demands was that Motsoeneng should leave the public broadcaster in line with the Public Protector’s findings and court rulings that his appointment was irrational.

Last Monday, the Supreme Court of Appeal rejected Motsoeneng’s bid to appeal against the Western Cape High Court’s November 2015 ruling declaring his appointment as COO irrational and setting it aside.

On Thursday, News24 reported that the SABC’s group secretary had asked the board, in a letter dated September 19, to recommended to Communications Minister Faith Muthambi that Motsoeneng be appointed acting COO until December.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.