While the SABC board met with the minister of communications, Dina Pule, today who is publicly and blatantly questioning "the fitness of the SABC board to remain in office", parliament's portfolio committee on communications - the government body tasked with oversight of the SABC - also met to urgently talk about the latest shocking management scandal engulfing the SABC; its chairperson Eric Kholwane saying that "Auckland Park is on fire!"
Dina Pule met with the SABC board this morning and afterwards called for an "urgent" review of the SABC board following massive breaches of corporate governance taking place at the highest levels of management at the South African public broadcaster.
The feuding SABC board and its chairperson dr. Ben Ngubane has plunged the SABC into the worst management crisis and good governance implosion the SABC has ever experienced.
To make it worse is the whole disgusting saga is playing out in full public view of an agast South African TV industry looking on at the latest incredulous scandal damaging what remains of the broadcaster's public image.
The massively destructive disaster started a week ago when the SABC board by consensus decision and without the SABC chairperson dr. Ben Ngubane present, decided to remove Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who famously doesn't have matric, as acting chief operating officer (COO).
Mike Siluma was appointed as the new acting COO at the SABC. Mike Siluma promptly quit three days later on Friday.
Dr. Ben Ngubane and deputy chairperson Thami ka Plaatjie then unilaterally "reinstated'" Hlaudi Motsoeneng as acting COO.
The SABC board came out publicly and poured blatant scorn on the autocratic decision-making, saying that neither dr. Ben Ngubane, nor Thami ka Plaatjie, nor both, had the right or authority to make such a unilateral decision and that Hlaudi Motsoeneng is definitely not the acting COO again.
Now its the SABC top executive hitters against the SABC's top executive hitters slugging it out in vicious, public and dirty infighting tearing the struggling broadcaster further apart and this time right from the very top.
On Tuesday evening the SABC's flagship news bulletin, the News @ 7 held with the SABC board's point of view and reported that "the SABC board's decision to terminate Hlaudi Motsoeneng's tenure as acting chief operating officer remains in place."
'Auckland Park is on fire!'
On Tuesday morning two parallel meetings were underway trying to get control, and to grips with the staggering management crisis at the SABC - one between Dina Pule and the SABC board, and the other parliament's portfolio committee on communications.
In a press statement Dina Pule said she is "most concerned about the latest breaches of corporate governance that are playing themselves out in public".
Dina Pule said in the statement that she asked parliament "to advise if they believe this SABC board is helping the government to deliver on its mandate to give South Africans access to quality public broadcasting."
Dina Pule called the meeting because the SABC board has so many governance issues they're simply not agreeing on.
"We need to be dealing with the issues which have been playing themselves out in the media. We need to understand why we have these challenges which are there. The decision of the SABC board is that Hlaudi Motsoeneng has been removed from the acting COO position.
Meanwhile in parliament member of parliament today were abuzz with the latest massive crisis gripping the broadcaster. All agreed that there are big "challenges" at the SABC.
"The SABC is in crisis. The whole nation knows that the SABC is on fire right now and I think it's our prime responsibility to discuss what the problem is and drastically and urgently suggest remedial action," said the Democratic Alliance's Marian Shinn.
"We cannot sit here and pretend that Rome is not burning. There's a crisis at the SABC," said Congress of the People's (Cope) Juli Kilian.
