SABC CEO Solly Mokoetle is taking huge financial strain, saying he has run up legal bills of more than R500 000 in the six weeks since his suspension by the broadcaster’s board.

Breaking his silence in an exclusive interview — he said the board had gagged him — Mokoetle said he found his current predicament “completely bizarre”.

“I’ve only been in the job for eight months and they’ve laid 17 charges against me,” he said. “Seventeen charges, can you believe it? Where do they find them all? The board bombarded me with 524 e-mails and 55 meetings during this period. It’s obvious that some board members have no jobs to do and so they sit there and micro-manage.”

Initially reluctant to discuss his case, Mokoetle opened up to the Mail & Guardian this week.

He complained that although he had been charged with failing to deliver a turnaround strategy for the SABC, board member Cedric Gcina, the president of Numsa, had now been put in charge of doing so.

“A former boilermaker and shop steward is now in charge of delivering the turnaround strategy of an organisation as big as the SABC,” he said. “How on earth did this happen? It’s quite unbelievable.”

Mokoetle said he and the SABC’s turnaround committee had been working on the strategy for the past eight months.

Under his leadership, he said, the Fifa World Cup had been a resounding success for the SABC and he had been busy stabilising the cashstrapped organisation.

Mokoetle said another charge against him related to the appointment of Phil Molefe as head of news, and the board itself had now ratifed Molefe’s appointment.

SABC chairperson Ben Ngubane appointed Molefe in May, without the approval of the rest of the board. Mokoetle backed Ngubane, earning the board’s wrath.

The breakdown of relations was highlighted in an internal memorandum Mokoetle wrote to Ngubane on August 3 this year. In it Mokoetle alleged that some board members, whom he did not name, were driving an “agenda of turning the SABC into an employment agency for themselves and their cohorts”.

Mokoetle dismissed as “totally untrue” media reports that he could be offered a R30m golden handshake as a payout for the balance of his contract.

His lawyer, Jurgens Bekker, confirmed that no payout had been discussed in meetings with the board.

Mokoetle said he wanted to return to his job and develop a good working relationship with the board. “I tried to extend an olive branch to the board before we went into a factional war reminiscent of the SABC’s recent past prior to my arrival,” he said. “But they didn’t accept it.”

Confirming that Mokoetle’s legal fees had topped R500 000, Bekker said he would apply for a court order to force the SABC to pay them, as it had done in the cases of other suspended top executives.

The board had not followed due process and had not given Mokoetle access to all the documents he required, Bekker said.

“The board appears to be divided on whether to let him come back and do his job,” he said.

Chairperson Ngubane said he was unable to comment on Mokoetle’s case, “as it is a sub-judice matter”.

Reacting to Mokoetle’s attack on his fitness to lead the SABC’s turnaround strategy, Numsa’s Gcina said he had always been the head of the turnaround committee and that Mokoetle and the rest of the team working on the strategy had reported to him.

“I’m not devising the strategy, I’m leading the team and it’s going very well,” he said. “The team is ready to present a proposal to the board at its next meeting.”

He was not being paid extra to lead the turnaround committee, he said, saying he received only a board member’s annual retainer of R100 000, as well as a flat rate for attending each board meeting.

Gcina said he had completed a number of programmes at the Unisa school of business leadership, including those in labour relations, human resources management, management leadership and executive development. — Glynis Underhill, Mail & Guardian

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