The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Executive and Board has been questioned about massive salary adjustments for some executives. They include the Group Executive of Human Resources, Mojaki Mosia, Head of Legal, Ntuthuzelo Vanara, and Group Executive of Sales, Reggie Nxumalo.
The question was raised by the Democratic Alliance Member of the Communications Committee, Dianne Kohler- Barnard. The committee quizzed various state-owned entities which fall under the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies.
Outgoing board chairperson, Bongumusa Makhathini, also told the committee that a comprehensive handover plan will be given to the new board.
As the office of the Auditor-General painted a bleak picture of how some entities have incurred fruitless and wasteful expenditure in previous financial years, Kohler-Barnard wanted clarity from the SABC on the salary hikes for Mosia, Vanara and Nxumalo.
“Please confirm whether your Head of HR Dr Mosia has received 20.31% increase in salary. Your GE from Sales Mr Nxumalo received a 19.26 % increase, Legal Head Mr Vanara (received ) 11.37% increase. Cost of the executives and board went up by 19.61%, we are now talking R49 million. And the reason that I ask this is of course the mass firing, retrenchments, constructive dismissals, however you want to phrase it and the recent offer to the staff that are left between zero increase to three years, up to maybe 3% if there may be or not. And yet for some reason the people at the top have received massive increases. I would like someone to justify that for me please.”
The SABC and unions salary negotiations deadlocked:
SABC Group Chief Executive Officer, Madoda Mxakwe, says top management has not received any salary increases. However, Mxakwe explained why adjustments were seen in the salaries of Mosia and Vanara and why Nxumalo received a slice of the pie.
“If I can then go on to explain, the Group Executive of Sales, because he is very key in driving growth of the SABC is part of the Sales Commission that all sale employees are eligible for. The second point, Advocate Vanara used to be the General Manager for Legal and then applied and the due process was followed through his promotion as the Group Executive for Legal Regulatory and Compliance. So, that is the reason why the difference there. I can also confirm that Dr Mojaki did not receive any increase. The change in his total package is largely attributed to the transition into the new leave dispensation that all SABC employees went through in the past fiscal.”
Handover report
On the board’s handover report, outgoing chairperson, Bongumusa Makhathini, says it will be given to the new board.
“There is an element that the chair wanted me to cover, maybe I can cover it now because the board’s term is nearing the end. In fact our term ends on Saturday and we prepared a comprehensive handover plan that will then be shared with the incoming board as part of the induction.”
Committee Chairperson Boyce Maneli noted that the handover report has to be given to the incoming SABC Board. He also indicated that it may contain commercially sensitive information.
“We do accept that the SABC would indeed through the handover report have clarified this point that we are not the board indeed. It would have been an error for us to handover report to the new board, that’s not us. But we need to get the progress. But I want to make a ruling that in the course of questions and responses, that matter would also have been spoken to, to cover the HR issues, what could have been retrenchments, why the increases in other spaces and so they have spoken to that. But of course we do know that in a handover report, there may be commercially sensitive matters. We hope that the board will have to be taken into confidence as they takeover , or I think we should accept that as the way forward.”
When Makhathini and eleven other Non-Executive board members complete their term on Saturday 15 October, the SABC will only function under the executive board which is the CEO, CFO and COO until an interim or incoming board is appointed.
