{"id":43748,"date":"2013-08-06T14:47:54","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T12:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=43748"},"modified":"2013-08-07T09:00:52","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T07:00:52","slug":"sabc-corruption-investigation-shock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/43748\/sabc-corruption-investigation-shock\/","title":{"rendered":"SABC corruption investigation shock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Democratic\u00a0Alliance (<a title=\"DA\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1696-DA-Democratic-Alliance\">DA<\/a>) says that replies to questions put before\u00a0parliament have revealed that, since 2009, corruption investigations at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (<a title=\"SABC\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/5190-South-African-Broadcasting-Corporation-%28SABC%29\">SABC<\/a>) have cost the public broadcaster R19.5 million.<\/p>\n<p>During the same time-frame, a further R10.8 million was spent on resolving staff dismissal disputes, the political party said.<\/p>\n<p>The DA said in a statement on Tuesday (6 August) that of particular concern is that, of the 1,465 employees who were identified during investigations for not declaring their interests, disciplinary action has been undertaken against only 300 of those employees.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, of the 14 cases that were reported to the South African Police Service (<a title=\"SAPS\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/8623-South-African-Police-Service-SAPS\">SAPS<\/a>), only one has been concluded, it said.<\/p>\n<p>According to the replies to the DA:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>R19.5 million was paid to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) for an audit following the Auditor-General\u2019s special investigation of the SABC in 2009;<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0The SABC\u2019s Internal and Forensic Audit units have carried out 107 investigations;<\/li>\n<li>R10.8 million has been spent on legal fees to resolve dismissal disputes. The majority of these cases relate to SABC top-management including the GM of SABC News International, Head of Procurement, the News Editor, CFO, General Executive: News and Current Affairs and the chief audit executive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Communications Minister, <a title=\"Yunus Carrim\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/9229-Yunus-Carrim\">Yunus Carrim<\/a> said late last month (July) that a\u00a0task team has been established to sort out the financial problems at the SABC.<\/p>\n<p>In April, President <a title=\"Jacob Zuma\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2611-Jacob-Zuma\">Jacob Zuma<\/a> approved the interim board, which was installed after the resignations of most of the previous board\u2019s members in March, and its eventual dissolution by Parliament.<\/p>\n<p>Their departure came after a reported clash between previous chairman <a title=\"Ben Ngubane\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/7600-Ben-Ngubane\">Ben Ngubane<\/a> and the board about the tenure of previous acting chief operating officer <a title=\"Hlaudi Motsoeneng\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/7602-Hlaudi-Motsoeneng\">Hlaudi Motsoeneng<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The DA said that while it welcomes the action being taken to root out corruption at the SABC, and Carrim must follow up on why, despite numerous investigations, so few actual dismissals have taken place.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I will be submitting a series of follow up questions in Parliament to get these answers,&#8221; said <a title=\"Marian Shinn\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/4592-Marian-Shinn\">Marian Shinn<\/a>, DA shadow minister of communications.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is imperative that the publicly funded, SABC does not continue to leak funds due to corruption. The new Minister must ensure that all new staff, especially top management are properly qualified, vetted against corrupt activities and are experienced for the task at hand,&#8221; Shinn said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Corrective action must now be taken to prevent any further rot.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on the SABC<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"Carrim establishes SABC task team\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/43288\/carrim-establishes-sabc-task-team\/\"><strong>Carrim establishes SABC task team<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"SABC getting 24 hour news channel on DStv\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/41378\/sabc-getting-24-hour-news-channel-on-dstv\/\"><strong>SABC getting 24 hour news channel on DStv<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to How much did the SABC invest in local content last year?\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/39294\/how-much-did-the-sabc-invest-in-local-content-last-year\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">How much did the SABC invest in local content last year?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Golden handshake for suspended SABC head: report\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/39187\/golden-handshake-for-suspended-sabc-head-report\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Golden handshake for suspended SABC head: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to SABC will repay loan soon: Pule\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/38276\/sabc-will-repay-loan-soon-pule\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">SABC will repay loan soon: Pule<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The DA says that replies to questions put before parliament have revealed that since 2009, corruption investigations at the SABC have cost the public broadcaster R19.5 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5554],"tags":[2061,26,2093,667],"class_list":["post-43748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-democratic-alliance","tag-headline","tag-marian-shinn","tag-sabc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43748"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43781,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43748\/revisions\/43781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}