BREAKING. Internal hunt underway at SABC to find out how the broadcaster acquired R20 million in lux Mercedes Benz's for news.

The South African public broadcaster may be telling parliament and the government one thing, but in really it's abundantly clear that the acting group CEO of the SABC Phil Molefe and the chairperson of the board dr Ben Ngubane are seemingly not in control of the continued runaway spending at the beleaguered broadcaster.

The SABC is investigating more unauthorised spending of R20 million during the past month by the public broadcaster's news and current affairs division who splashed out on new luxury sedans acquired from Debis Fleet Management (the SABC's current suppliers) despite there being a moratorium on any big ticket items at the struggling broadcaster that includes the leasing of new vehicles.

Sources tell me that the spending on luxury Mercedes Benz's was not allowed or approved, yet authorised on multiple levels despite strict rules regarding the SABC's Procurement Policy. One car that was allocated to Nelspruit was already in a deadly accident on 22 September, but none of the vehicles are even insured.

Lerato Nage, the SABC's acting chief financial officer (CFO), the acting group CEO Phil Molefe and the acting head of news at the SABC, Mike Silume were all made aware of the sourcing of SABC fleet vehicles from Debis Fleet Management despite the moratorium that's in place that prohibits the leasing of new vehicles.

An internal hunt is now underway at the SABC to find out what happened, who approved what, and who signed what documents to get the vehicles from Debis Fleet Management and why the vehicles were not even insured.