by Thinus Ferreira
The South African public broadcaster that has apparently been lying about supposed deliberate internal sabotage has been forced to reinstate a producer that it accused and tried to blame for allegedly deliberately being part of a "well co-ordinated plan to sabotage" president Cyril Ramaphosa by broadcasting a wrong version of his speech in 2019.
On 5 September 2019 technical failures and incompetence by numerous people all through the SABC News production value chain at the broadcaster is what actually led to SABC News broadcasting a wrong pre-recorded clip of South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa's national address.
SABC News ended up showing a rehearsal recording instead of the second take as the correct version that were both recorded in Cape Town and sent to the SABC's head office in Auckland Park in Johannesburg.
Cyril Ramaphosa was addressing South Africa in a speech about gender violence, following the horrific murder of the University of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana in a Cape Town post office.
The SABC in a statement on 10 September 2019 said that "The SABC now has strong prima facie evidence indicating that the broadcast of the incorrect clip was a well-considered and coordinated act of sabotage to bring the SABC and consequently the president into disrepute".
The SABC suspended 3 permanent staffers and "unscheduled" a freelancer following the embarrassing incident it blamed on "sabotage".
Madoda Mxakwe said in the statement that "the SABC will not tolerate any acts or omissions that bring the public broadcaster into disrepute, and undermine efforts to eradicate systemic problems of malfeasance and maladministration plaguing the institution".
Phathiswa Magopeni, the head of SABC News, said in the statement that "any employee found to be involved in clandestine activities aimed at undoing the ongoing work to restore the credibility of the public news service, will be dealt with accordingly within the confines of the SABC’s human resources and disciplinary policies".
On 5 September 2019 Sophie Mokoena was the acting head of news on the day, the output editor was Njanji Chauke, with Megan Lubke as Full View executive producer and Rozalia Whitehead as producer.
Within the SABC News production, editing and broadcasting work stream, everybody blamed everybody else, showing that incompetence at the SABC - not deliberate sabotage - was actually to blame for the embarrassing mistake.
Two years later the SABC has quietly reinstated the producer who was fired, with nothing that has come of the SABC's claims of deliberate "sabotage" of the country's president's speech.
