Jocelyn Newmarch
16 July 2008
Johannesburg — SABC CE Dali Mpofu yesterday suggested that a feud with Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad might have led to his suspension.
Speaking to journalists yesterday, he said: "Last year, I had a difference with him over the PSL (Premier Soccer League) rights issue. He wished to interfere in how the matter was dealt with. I stood my ground. I do not believe in external interference."
Pahad had attended an SABC board meeting in March this year and "tried to shout me down. I shouted back," Mpofu said. "Maybe those kinds of incidents" had led to his suspension, he said.
Although interaction between the SABC and the government should be through Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, as the shareholder's representative, the SABC board had had "four or five" meetings with Pahad around the time of the PSL television rights negotiation .
Mpofu defended the PSL deal, saying the SABC had negotiated a better deal - for 146 games a season - than the previous deal, which allowed only 106 games to be broadcast. "Could we afford to pay R1,6 billion, when previously we had bought the rights for R300 million?" he asked. He said he had acted under the board's instructions.
The only way a public broadcaster could afford to broadcast "sports of national interest" was if regulations protected it from private sector competition, he said.
He said he had "very reliable" information that a "political heavyweight was seeking to lean on board members" for his removal. He did not know how many directors this "heavyweight" had sought to influence, but he knew of "at least one" director who had been approached.
Mpofu said his lawyers would lodge an application to appeal against Judge Antonie Gildenhuys' s ruling on Monday, which found that the SABC board meetings of June 2 and 11 were lawful. Pahad's spokesman Samson Phakwago, did not respond to questions .
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