Business Day (Johannesburg)
Linda Ensor
1 July 2009
Cape Town — Further allegations of corruption and "looting" by SABC executives has prompted Parliament's communications committee to take action to deal with them.
The latest allegations were made yesterday in a submission to the committee by Andile Mbeki, a director who has resigned. Mbeki claimed that executives manipulated tender processes to ensure that their desired bidders won lucrative contracts.
He said that unless the committee dealt with these management-related problems, the SABC's crisis would persist even when the board of directors was replaced. The National Assembly is due to debate a committee resolution to dissolve the board today.
The Broadcasting, Electronic, Media and Allied Workers' Union, the Communication Workers' Union and the Media Workers' Association of SA also alleged gross, fruitless and wasteful expenditure by management, while board member Nadia Bulbulia accused commissioning executives of being "on the take" and executives being mainly concerned about protecting their unlimited car allowances and selling trade secrets to competitors.
Committee chairman Ismail Vadi has requested that the committee be given the outcomes of all forensic investigations that have taken place so far and a schedule of outstanding cases. He said the numerous allegations being made, though still untested, were a source of concern.
"Something needs to be done to verify the accuracy or otherwise of these allegations," he said. "The committee cannot sweep them under the carpet."
The SABC's head of strategy and risk, Sipho Sithole, stressed the need for a forensic investigation across all units to determine if they were breaking the rules of corporate governance and if executives were stealing from the organisation, as alleged.
Former CEO Dali Mpofu supported the call for an inquiry, saying this was the only way executives could clear their names.
Mbeki claimed tender procedures were ignored, tender documents would be changed midway and management consistently split tenders so that they would not exceed the R15m limit requiring approval by the board.
"Management would insist on awarding a tender to a bidder that was so expensive and outside the approved budget that it would clearly demonstrate that they had no interest of the SABC at heart," Mbeki said.
Former SABC board chairwoman Kanyi Mkonza has accused executives of "rampant corruption" and of trying to get rid of the board that wanted to stop their activities.
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