SACP statement on the dismissal of Mr Hlaudi Motsoeneng from the SABC and the resignation of Mr Ben Ngubane from Eskom

13 June 2017

Mr Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the boss on whose threshold at SABC board members who disagreed with his unlawful appointment and his dealings were removed and workers fired, has himself bitten the dust – he has been fired. Mr Ben Ngubane, who was at the helm of the SABC during its period of cowboy governance leading to institutional decay, has also resigned from Eskom where he was appointed as board chairperson following his departure from the SABC.  Eskom had also entered a period of governance decay. The irregular reappointment of Mr Brian Molefe, who cried tears over the revelation of Gupta dealings and his Saxonworld shebeen activities, was without question the tip of the iceberg.

Further investigations into the financial collapse of the SABC and shadowy dealings both at the SABC and Eskom must unfold in earnest. The whole of the Eskom board must go. Its fitness to hold office has been compromised.

The national heritage in the form of SABC archives and the strategic programming control associated with the archives must be restored to the full control of the SABC. The MultiChoice-SABC deal that conveyed the SABC archives and related aspects of strategic programming control to MultiChoice must be scrapped. The SABC must be strengthened to become a vibrant, truly and robustly independent public broadcaster. The entire hollowing out of the SABC by means of tenderisation and questionable dealings must be rolled back.

The SACP reiterates its call for the appointment of an independent judicial commission of inquiry into the wider phenomenon of corporate state capture without any further waste of time, with the report of the Public Protector entitled the “State of Capture” serving as the basis in accordance with the report.

The SACP will continue, and intensify, public mobilisation to forge the broadest possible patriotic front to confront the scourge of corporate state capture and corruption, as well as persisting high levels of class inequality, unemployment and poverty altogether with their racial and gender articulations. South Africa deserves to be a better place and South Africans, the majority of whom is the workers and poor, as opposed to a tiny minority, deserve a better life, a life with economic, political and social exploitation by another person, class or state.

Issued by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, National Spokesperson & Head of Communications, SACP, 13 June 2017