Tuesday, November 20, 2012

BREAKING. SABC called a 'circus' and 'like Hollywood': SABC and chairperson Ben Ngubane blasted in parliament over lack of controls.


In the now all too common refrain, the SABC and especially its chairperson dr Ben Ngubane was blasted in parliament today, when members of parliament criticised the SABC's lack of leadership and lack of controls and called the shocking fracturous display of the SABC in parliament "a circus" and "like Hollywood".

The SABC was ordered to appear before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) where a visibly irritated dr Ben Ngubane had to endure the scathing wrath of members of parliament and revealed that the SABC has no internal audit committee.

Meanwhile backstage drama spilled over into the public domain yet again as suspended high ranking SABC executives - one of them an SABC board member - tried to make unsolicited statements before SCOPA, highlighting in itself dr Ben Ngubane's unability to control even SABC board members and  the highly fracturous nature of the SABC board.

The suspended Gugu Duda, the SABC's chief financial officer, and the SABC board member Cawe Mahlati wanted to tell SCOPA that in their opinion the SABC was flouting good governance procedures.

Gugu Duda tried to interrupt the official proceedings just ike Cawe Mahlati did during the SABC's previous appearance in parliament to tell SCOPA her version of the major internal struggles over the past eight years at the SABC.

"This has become a circus," said Themba Godi, the SCOPA chairperson. "Never before have we seen members of a board come here, contradicting other members of the board."

"How did we choose you? What kind of people did we [parliament] choose really?" said Themba Godi with his head in his hands.

Members of parliament blasted dr Ben Ngubane, the SABC board and executives for the lack of internal controls which led to the SABC receiving yet another qualified audit for 2011/2012. "This represents a 70% failure rate," the SABC board was told.

Dr Ben Ngubane told SCOPA that there were delayes in improving governance structures at the SABC.

"The SABC is more like Hollywood, where almost everyone is an actor or in an acting position," said SCOPA. Tian Olivier, the acting chief financial officer (CFO), and Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the acting chief operating officer (COO) were two examples of SABC executives who were present in the appearance before SCOPA today and are serving in an acting capacity.

In a statement the SABC says that the public broadcaster reiterated before SCOPA "that the corporation is stabilising". The SABC says the broadcaster "has developed a corporate strategy, a concrete action to deal with audit matters and other corporate matters."