The SABC has been suffering its ongoing administrative and governance decay on the watch of and with the active complicity of its board...

The South African Communist Party (SACP) welcomes the decisive stands adopted by the African National Congress (ANC) and Cabinet this week in response to what our Party has long identified as governance and administrative decay at the SABC. This decay has been destroying the public broadcaster from within as well as eroding any outside public trust in this critical institution for the consolidation of democracy.

This has happened on the watch of and with the active complicity of the SABC board – the reason why a Parliamentary hearing into the failure of the SABC board to perform its functions is an absolute necessity and must take place as a matter of urgency. The SABC has effectively been governed through court orders and out of court settlements (many of which are simply ignored after the fact). A string of SABC failures in court have all come at a huge cost to tax payers as a result of the arrogance of its decision-makers and their incapacity to ensure good governance.

The SABC board has failed to hold anyone accountable for blowing more than R5-billion in irregular expenditure, according to reports highlighting the Auditor General’s final financial management findings and concerns. This squandering of resources includes R150.7-million in SABC contracts awarded to “close family members, partners and associates”.

Yesterday, Thursday 29 September 2016, the SABC board and executive management tried to brush aside or otherwise turn a blind eye to these problems, while accepting that the SABC suffered a net loss of R411-million for the 2015-2016 financial year, up from the net loss of R395-million suffered in the previous financial year.

It is SABC’s decision-makers who sold-off to MultiChoice lucrative archives, public property, as well as important broadcast and programming rights including sport rights in a collusive agreement. MultiChoice is a subsidiary of Naspers, an apartheid-era oligopoly that continues to dominate the media and communications industry in our country. It is not the state and the public who are hollowing out the strategic capacity of the SABC, but its own executives and board. The SACP rejects the pathetic claim by the SABC executives and board blaming the state and the public for its current predicament.

Meanwhile the SABC board must still publicly account for the manner in which it appointed Hlaudi Motsoeneng to the position of group executive of corporate affairs. The board previously unlawfully appointed Motsoeneng permanently as SABC COO. The manner in which the board appointed him to the current position appears to be no different.

Statement issued by the SACP, 30 September 2016