The top management paralysis at the beleaguered SABC seems set to continue well into 2011 with an acrimonious stand-off and tension between the SABC board and the SABC chairperson dr Ben Ngubane; its suspended group CEO Solly Mokoetle mired in a disciplinary hearing; a wayward SABC news division lead by maverick Phil Molefe inserting social agenda-setting campaigns into news bulletins and no end in sight to several unaddressed issues of mismanagement and gross corporate breaches at the public broadcaster.
I can tell you that senior SABC sources are telling me that the SABC's turnaround strategy documents have not been completed yet, and that that, as well as the changing of the guard in government with new leadership at parliament's portfolio commitee for communications as well as a new minister of communications, prompted the commitee to postpone the SABC board's appearance today before parliament ''indefinitely'' as I told you RIGHT HERE yesterday.
The suddenly postponed follow-up meeting and appearance of the SABC board before parliament was last month rescheduled for today since the SABC board didn't submit any documentation as required beforehand, and because those poorly concocted documents that the SABC presented during the actual meeting ''looked like children did it'' a government insider told me. The government probe into the unraveling, infighting and seizure of the SABC's top management might now only happen in 2011. Why?
I've heard whispers of a supposed, not-confirmed date of November 26, but here's the truth: parliament goes into recess in about two weeks for the Christmas holiday and the committee still actually has to find a suitable time to have the meeting. ''Not impossible, but highly unlikely,'' a government insider tells me. Then there is this as well: a new minister of communications, Roy Padayachie taking over from the booted Siphiwe Nyanda, and Sikhumbuzo Eric Kholwane who is now the new acting chairperson of parliament's portfolio commitee for communications in the place of Ismail Vadi who majorly failed this year in bringing the SABC to task.
A senior SABC insider with knowledge of the situation also tells me the SABC's documentation on the public broadcaster's supposed turnaround strategy (that was supposed to be drafted and implemented months ago by the now suspended SABC group CEO Solly Mokoetle) is not done yet. ''They are working hard but the more time, the better revised it will appear,'' I'm told.
ALSO READ: SABC board to get the ''Roy-al'' treatment tomorrow when meeting with new minister of communications Roy Padayachie.
