Parliament was told last week that Phil Molefe, the head of news and current affairs at the SABC is responsible for launching the 24 hour news channel. The project is coloured yellow which indicate that it's behind and delayed.
The Monitoring Task Team (MTT) set up and being run by the department of communications to look after key performance areas and issues at the SABC also said that the SABC has failed to submit a final business plan for the new 24 hour news channel, to give an indication of projected revenues.
I can also reveal that the SABC now plans to have a permanent new chief technical officer (CTO) by the end of March. Gelfand Kausiyo took over in November as the chief technical officer at the SABC but Gelfand Kausiyo got suspended at the beginning of this year after allegations of misconduct.
Now we also perhaps know why. Gelfand Kausiyo while at the SABC, also worked as a consultant for KISS-FM. KISS-FM was caught allegedly using plagiarised SABC documents in their application they made to the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ). As a result, KISS-FM lost their bid for a commercial radio license due to the evident plagiarism of an SABC technical report used in the bid document.
The allegation is that Gelfand Kausiyo - who himself is from Zimbabwe originally - compiled the KISS-FM and allegedly used an SABC technical report to do it. KISS-FM denied the plagiarism allegations but admitted that Gelfand Kausiyo was a consultant on the bid and compiled the report. The SABC suspended Gelfand Kausiyo and is investigating the allegations.
