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South Africa: SABC Senior Official Alleges Board Misconduct
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
9 July 2008
Posted to the web 9 July 2008
Jocelyn Newmarch
Johannesburg
THE SABC's acting chief operations officer, Charlotte Mampane, has alleged misconduct and wasteful expenditure on the part of the public broadcaster's board.
She says the organisation's head of news, Snuki Zikalala, was improperly reinstated by the board, that the board overstepped its powers, and that the day-to-day running of the broadcaster is in jeopardy.
The allegations are contained in an affidavit SABC employees and stakeholders asked to be included in the court papers relating to the dispute between suspended SABC group CEO Dali Mpofu and the SABC board yesterday in the Johannesburg High Court over his suspension.
But when it became clear that this would result in a further postponement of the case, the application was withdrawn.
Although the affidavit was not admitted as evidence, the matter continues today. It was postponed yesterday when it emerged that court documents were numbered incorrectly.
Mpofu also abandoned any contention now or in future of misconduct by individual directors, other than the chairwoman, at board meetings held last month. He was previously seeking punitive costs against individual board members.
According to the affidavit, 13 board meetings had been convened in the past two months, most of which were spent discussing the dispute between Mpofu and the board.
Despite this, the dispute remains unresolved. Only two of those meetings discussed the day-to-day running of the SABC, leaving operational matters largely ignored.
Mampane accused the board of wasteful expenditure, since the cost of pursuing the dispute in court was estimated by the Mail & Guardian at between R3 million and R5 million.
Mampane, herself an executive director, said chair woman Khanyi Mkonza and "another board member" had concluded a contract to appoint a marketing company to represent the board, without the authorisation of the board, and without the knowledge of the SABC's own marketing department, its CE or its chief financial officer.
This allegation presumably refers to FNP Communications, the employer of Lorato Tshenkeng, the board's spokesman .
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Mampane said the board had also reinstated suspended news chief Zikalala, which was interference in a management decision, as Zikalala did not report to the board. This had happened without any inquiry into serious allegations against Zikalala.
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