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IT CAN only happen in South Africa that someone accused of embellishing his qualifications and basically defrauding the corporation he has led for years, gets to be appointed to one of the top four influential positions in that corporation.
The SABC this week permanently appointed the controversial Hlaudi Motsoeneng to the influential post of chief operating officer (COO). He had been in that position in an acting capacity for a number years.
The announcement was made on Wednesday by newly-appointed Communications Minister Faith Muthambi in Pretoria.
Muthambi said she made the appointment after a recommendation by the SABC board.
This is Muthambi’s first blunder as the minister of communications and I strongly hope this is not a warning sign that we should brace ourselves for more gaffes in the future.
And I also hope this latest slip-up is not a sign that another incompetent person has been appointed to lead this department, once headed by Dina Pule who was fired by President Jacob Zuma after she was implicated in nepotistic and corrupt behaviour regarding businessman and boyfriend Phosane Mngqibisa.
I cannot believe that Muthambi did not know anything about Motsoeneng before she was appointed minister in this department. If she truly had not heard anything about this controversial guy, where has she been all these years? And why would Zuma appoint an ignorant person to a crucial position such as this?
Anyway, last week political parties called for Motsoeneng to be dismissed from the corporation after he proposed that reporters first have a licence to practise, like in the medical and law professions.
“You know when you are a journalist, you are a professional journalist. If you don’t have ethics and principles and you mislead on your reporting, like lawyers ... if you commit any mistake they take your licence,” he was quoted as saying.
But he failed to amplify this argument when interviewed by the eNCA presenter of Justice Factor, columnist and broadcaster Justice Malala.
He had just said, during the interview with Malala, that journalists pay more attention to negative news and leave much positive news unreported.
But Malala put it to him that the disclosure that Minister of Mineral Resources Ngoako Ramatlhodi held shares worth millions of rands in a platinum firm while mediating the end of a five-month-long strike, could sound negative but was basically a positive story.
Ramatlhodi held shares in Atlatsa Resources, a BEE unit within platinum giant Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS], one of the three companies hit by the protracted platinum strike.
Motsoeneng failed to come up with an argument to counter Malala’s, prompting me to think that this was a man who did not know what he was talking about but was bent only on protecting the government, his paymaster.
Earlier this year, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela released a report entitled When Governance and Ethics Fail. The report found that Motsoeneng’s employment at the SABC was improper. Additionally, his pay package was hiked from R1.5m to R2.4m in one year, Madonsela found.
Madonsela also found he had falsified his credentials, claiming he had passed matric. She recommended that he be fired, and suggested that a new COO be appointed within 90 days. This closing date has since slipped away.
This week, Madonsela stated her astonishment at Motsoeneng's appointment.
The only positive thing that came out of this saga is that the ANC reportedly also hit back at the appointment.
It seldom happens that ANC expresses shock in public at decisions taken by its ministers.
- Fin24
*Mzwandile Jacks is an independent journalist. Opinions expressed are his own.
The SABC this week permanently appointed the controversial Hlaudi Motsoeneng to the influential post of chief operating officer (COO). He had been in that position in an acting capacity for a number years.
The announcement was made on Wednesday by newly-appointed Communications Minister Faith Muthambi in Pretoria.
Muthambi said she made the appointment after a recommendation by the SABC board.
This is Muthambi’s first blunder as the minister of communications and I strongly hope this is not a warning sign that we should brace ourselves for more gaffes in the future.
And I also hope this latest slip-up is not a sign that another incompetent person has been appointed to lead this department, once headed by Dina Pule who was fired by President Jacob Zuma after she was implicated in nepotistic and corrupt behaviour regarding businessman and boyfriend Phosane Mngqibisa.
I cannot believe that Muthambi did not know anything about Motsoeneng before she was appointed minister in this department. If she truly had not heard anything about this controversial guy, where has she been all these years? And why would Zuma appoint an ignorant person to a crucial position such as this?
Anyway, last week political parties called for Motsoeneng to be dismissed from the corporation after he proposed that reporters first have a licence to practise, like in the medical and law professions.
“You know when you are a journalist, you are a professional journalist. If you don’t have ethics and principles and you mislead on your reporting, like lawyers ... if you commit any mistake they take your licence,” he was quoted as saying.
But he failed to amplify this argument when interviewed by the eNCA presenter of Justice Factor, columnist and broadcaster Justice Malala.
He had just said, during the interview with Malala, that journalists pay more attention to negative news and leave much positive news unreported.
But Malala put it to him that the disclosure that Minister of Mineral Resources Ngoako Ramatlhodi held shares worth millions of rands in a platinum firm while mediating the end of a five-month-long strike, could sound negative but was basically a positive story.
Ramatlhodi held shares in Atlatsa Resources, a BEE unit within platinum giant Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS], one of the three companies hit by the protracted platinum strike.
Motsoeneng failed to come up with an argument to counter Malala’s, prompting me to think that this was a man who did not know what he was talking about but was bent only on protecting the government, his paymaster.
Earlier this year, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela released a report entitled When Governance and Ethics Fail. The report found that Motsoeneng’s employment at the SABC was improper. Additionally, his pay package was hiked from R1.5m to R2.4m in one year, Madonsela found.
Madonsela also found he had falsified his credentials, claiming he had passed matric. She recommended that he be fired, and suggested that a new COO be appointed within 90 days. This closing date has since slipped away.
This week, Madonsela stated her astonishment at Motsoeneng's appointment.
The only positive thing that came out of this saga is that the ANC reportedly also hit back at the appointment.
It seldom happens that ANC expresses shock in public at decisions taken by its ministers.
- Fin24
*Mzwandile Jacks is an independent journalist. Opinions expressed are his own.
