So says the Media Workers Association of South Africa (Mwasa) which is slamming the beleaguered South African public broadcaster, following a scathing independent skills report on the SABC conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Yesterday in a hastily convened press conference following the barrage of press following the skills audit report, the SABC claimed the report is old, although it never refuted the facts regarding the lack of qualifications at the broadcaster.
"The singular excuse presented by the SABC is the insulting, idiotic claim that the report is 'outdated'. The staff of the SABC should be treated with respect and not with such contempt and disdain," says Tuwani Gumani, the secretary general of Mwasa. "It is abhorrable that the leadership of the SABC would demean the staff in such a manner".
"The report simply confirms what is and has been known as irrefutable fact inside and outside the SABC across the country and abroad," says Mwasa.
"While there are many skilled individuals within the employ of the SABC, they are victimised, persecuted and prosecuted for their qualifications, demonstrable skills and insistence on the maintenance of professional and ethical standards".
"Boasting an extensive hoard of highly remunerated human resources management consultants, the SABC fails dismally to meet basic human resource management standards, to keep records, to screen candidates for recruitment and placement, to manage payroll, to determine training needs and to provide employee wellness programmes in general."
"The acting chief operations officer (COO), along with many others employed at the SABC has no matric and other verifiable post-matric qualifications," says Tuwani Gumani about the famously matricless Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
"How everyone glosses over the destructive impact and effect of the role played by this incumbent is inexplicable but inexcusable."
Tuwani Gumadi says "the SABC must be placed under administration of one form or another to salvage it from the inexcusable incompetence demonstrated by those who would treat South Africans as retarded, moronic and idiotic".
"Ideally, the SABC must be transformed into a fully fledged public-owned chapter 9 institution to be freed from direct political and other vested interests".
