The Democratic Alliance wants former SABC chair Zandile Tshabalala, who resigned last December, to “pay back the money” she received during her 22-month tenure at the public broadcaster.

“A reply to a DA parliamentary question reveals that former SABC chair … was paid more than R1,3m during her 22-month tenure. We believe that this R1,3m constitutes ill-gotten gains and must be paid back,” the party’s spokesman on communications, Gavin Davis, said in a statement.

“If Tshabalala had been honest about her lack of qualifications, she would not have been appointed SABC chair in the first place. If she had not been appointed, she would not have been paid R1,3m.”

Davis said he has written to the acting chair of the SABC, Mbulaheni Obert Baghuve, urging him to take steps to recover the money.

“This is not just a moral argument. It is SABC policy that any money accruing to an individual as a result of a wrongful act must be paid back,” Davis said.

“The SABC needs to close this sorry chapter in its history by enforcing its own fraud and corruption policy.”

Tshabalala resigned in mid-December after coming under fire for not providing proof of her qualifications, as requested by a parliamentary committee.

Unisa executive director for legal services Jan van Wyk told the committee last year that Tshabalala had registered for a BComm degree in both 1988 and 1996, but had failed to obtain the qualification.

According to Unisa records, she had also registered for a diploma in labour relations in 1995. During the academic year, she passed two, failed two, and did not write two of the modules.

In January 1996, she was allowed to rewrite the two she did not write the previous year. She obtained a score of 13% for her human resources module, and a score of 35% for labour relations.

Unisa then wrote to Tshabalala informing her she did not qualify to redo the course.

The committee found Tshabalala guilty of two counts of misconduct, one for stating on her CV that she had obtained the two qualifications when she applied for the job as SABC chair and the other related to an affidavit she submitted to parliament stating that her qualifications had been stolen during a burglary at her home.

Tshabalala rejected Van Wyk’s testimony as “hearsay”, saying Unisa had been having problems with its records and computer system, and they could not be trusted.

She said she had tried numerous times to get a copy of her qualification from Unisa, but had failed because of its computer problems. – TechCentral and Sapa