Hlaudi Motsoeneng: Zuma's Media Man
Is South Africa still a free nation?
There are a few things we need to check on before we say yes:
A Constitution that protects all the important rights and freedoms
A representative, robust and accountable system of government
A healthy and potent set of regulations and enforcing officers or personnel
Freedom of the media
Minimum government interference in affairs outside its mandate
So, how does South Africa do on this test? Here is the common consensus:
Very, very doubtful
Good – thanks to Thuli Mandonsela. Poor otherwise (compromised Hawks, NPA)
Under Attack
Very, very doubtful
Not great. Pretty poor, by any measure. An embarrassment to the memory of the idealists and heroes who lead South Africa to a new era as the beacon of hope for democracy – in Africa and elsewhere. What are we to make of this?
Most of that checklist seems shaky or just plain bad. I'm going to focus on point 4 in this article, because media freedom is not only vital in and of itself, it is instrumental in helping to keep the other aspects of a free nation alive and well. The second reason I feel it urgent to address media freedoms, is because it has over the last year or two been in horrifically bad decline.
Media freedom is under attack, blatantly and publicly. Ethics, good management practice, the legislation of our nation and even human decency is going out the window of the institution supposed to anchor South Africa's media independence, media freedom and quality of reporting. I speak, of course, of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), a company that is losing millions of Rands and undermining our freedom under the tyranny of one man: Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
When Motsoeneng applied at the SABC for the first time, he indicated that he had had five subjects in matric – English, Sesotho, Afrikaans, History and “Bibs” – for which he indicated that he got all “E” symbols, apart from an “F” for History. A note on his application read: “Ask Hlaudi for his matric [certificate].” According to the correspondence seen by Beeld, the SABC gave Hlaudi the opportunity to attain a matric certificate – which he did not do. So, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of our public broadcaster, still has not finished martic. Later on, Motsoeneng would admit that he had lied in his application and say that he could not accurately remember some of the symbols he had attained in matric.
Hlaudi has defended this fact multiple times, saying that a certificate does not mean one can think and that people who can think (or as he put it, people who have brains) do not always have certificates. Granted, this is true, but in Hlaudi's case he has proven to South Africa that thinking is not his strong suit in various ways.
Motsoeneng was suspended from the SABC in 2006 – at the time, he was the executive producer at Lesedi FM – after an audit by Deloitte & Touche had found that his colleagues viewed him as “a semi-literate journalist, inexperienced and not able to communicate in English.” Now, I agree that being able to communicate in English does not equate to intelligence, just as an inability to communicate in English does not equate to stupidity, but in South Africa and, indeed, most of the world, English is the lingua franca and to be able to communicate with the immensely diverse people of South Africa, being able to speak English is rather important.
This suspension came, his lawyer claims, after Motsoeneng had refused to conduct an interview in Sesotho, preferring to do it in English. This is, in my opinion, in interestingly stark contrast to his recent decision to promote local content by imposing a strict quota of 90% local music on all radio stations run by the SABC. May I also point out, that this quota means that none of the radio stations may cater for specific audiences – remarkably exclusionist for a supposedly progressive institution. Hlaudi justifies this by saying it will address the issue of racism in South Africa. He also says that playing 90% local music will show South Africa’s confidence in itself. I, for one, believe this is the exact opposite of what it does – it is much like a child who constantly has to point out that he is not a baby, because he is acting like one.
In 2009, Dali Mpofu (CEO of the SABC at the time) wrote to Hlaudi, offering him two potential posts at the SABC. Motsoeneng replied, stating that he wanted to be reinstated in his old position, which he was. My question is: How does one go from being suspended, to being able to dictate the conditions of one’s return? Since his reappointment in 2009, Motsoeneng has rapidly risen to the position of COO of the SABC.
Hlaudi has come under fire from the Public Protector, Miss Thuli Madonsela, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and several courts. The allegations range from fraud to illegal labour practices, and collectively paint a very dim picture of the man who has made the seat of the SABC COO into something like a dictatorial throne.
Madonsela, in 2014, found that Hlaudi had been allowed to act unlawfully in his position at the SABC, in her report entitled When Governance and Ethics Fail. In her report, Madonsela finds that Hlaudi had irregularly received three salary hikes (raising his salary from R1.5 million to R2.4 million a year in three separate hikes in 2014), as well as raising the salaries of certain staff members of the SABC and purging others illegally, resulting in millions of Rands' worth of court losses and settlements. It is in this report that Madonsela states that Hlaudi had lied about his matric certificate and was, in fact, not qualified for his position as the COO of the SABC.
Shockingly, the SABC disregarded her report, stating that their disciplinary hearing had found that he had not done anything wrong (or, at least, that they could not prove it) – all despite the judgement by the Supreme Court of Appeal that supported the report in question. In fact, the SABC board seems to support Hlaudi. In an almost unbelievable statement, the current chairperson of the board, Miss Ellen Zandile Tshabalala, claims that “Hlaudi is diligent and very capable” and that he “get[s] the job done.”
I would like to point out that Hlaudi has been quoted as saying that the SABC does not exist to make a profit. And, in that same breath, I’d like to point out that in the year that Hlaudi was permanently appointed as COO (2014), the SABC recorded a loss of R395 million. Do you still remember his massive, irregular salary hikes? The SABC claims that its losses in the 2014/15 financial year were mainly due to viewers who do not pay their TV licences.
Amongst many of Hlaudi’s controversial statements and decisions, are the following:
Hlaudi wants 70% of the news in South Africa to be positive
He banned airing of footage of violent protests, because he believes it will encourage further protests if media attention is given to violent protesters
He canned an interview with cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, otherwise known as Zapiro, because he believed that the interview would “offend [President Jacob] Zuma.”
Miners Shot Down, a documentary on the Marikana massacre of 2012, was never aired by the SABC... ostensibly because the Marikana commission [Farlam Commission of Inquiry] was still in progress and because there supposedly were no slots available
The SABC refused to air DA election advertisements twice – in the most recent incident, the SABC claimed that the IEC had not released their official lists yet and, again, that there were no available slots
Hlaudi stated that he believes that journalists should be regulated
There are many more examples, but these are just some of the most relevant. Let me spell out the problem with each issue:
Clear attack on the principle of unbiased reporting
Attacking unbiased reporting; probable political motives, which is not acceptable in journalism
Clear political bias, which goes against the ideal of fair elections. Also, bias towards a specific person
Probable political bias to protect the ruling party from further criticism due to facts clarified by the documentary
Undermining, once again, free and fair election practices. Absolutely unconstitutional
A vicious strike against media independence, and attempt at creating legislation solely for use in censorship and controlling the media
The African National Congress (ANC) – the current governing party – supports Hlaudi in full and has done so throughout his questionable career. It is blatantly obvious that Hlaudi is being influenced by the ANC, particularly Jacob Zuma. From an article by Gareth van Zyl for fin24, entitled “Minister to appeal Motsoeneng judgment”: “Minister of Communications Faith Muthambi plans to appeal a court decision to have SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s appointment declared unlawful and irrational.” Evidence that the ANC has vested interests in this champion of controversy.
The ANC seems eager to sing praise of Hlaudi Motsoeneng, but his time as SABC COO has made it abundantly clear that his appetite for ego-feeding is insatiable. The in-house SABC choir (which has a budget of over R3.7 million itself) was reported to regularly sing a praise song in his honour at staff meetings. What kind of inferiority complex requires such extreme measures to be taken to ensure that a person can feel good about themselves and their work?
Even that incredible source of praise eventually became stale, it seems: recently, the SABC has repeatedly aired a new praise song, “Thank You SABC”, thanking the SABC and in particular Hlaudi, for the controversial 90% local content decree. The song was composed and performed by various local artists – who no doubt are happy with the way Motsoeneng's decision has given local music an artificial monopoly on SABC radio. The song is an astonishing 6 minutes and 43 seconds long.
Oddly, the praising artists seem to not mind that the SABC is many, many years of unpaid royalties for the use of music behind it. While the SABC has recently raised its royalty rate for the use of music, it has been years since it paid any artist, and it cannot say when it will start paying again. Another odd contrast between apparent and actual support of local artists.
With such an absolute oversupply of erratic, irrational and unethical decrees and statements of questionable legality, Hlaudi Motsoeneng is a man who receives an enormous amount of criticism. While he seems to shrug off most of it, with the support of friends in high places, he has reportedly taken several aggressive measures to limit this criticism, keep his skeletons in the closet and keep the SABC safe from criticism by media houses that are less eager to be collared and muzzled by the ANC (refer to the pending Broadcast Amendment Bill that gives the Communications Minister control over the SABC board and thus the SABC itself).
As part of Hlaudi's war on media freedom, he has reportedly offered a R100 000 bounty for the exposing of any staff member leaking internal SABC information. Very generous for a company making a R500 million+ loss in a recent year. Clearly, his message is to keep the rot in the SABC out of the public eye, or else. Given the horrific 26% and over unemployment, the journalists at SABC will likely have to sing the party line and help hide the COO's skeletons. “At the SABC we have a policy to deal with the leaking of information,” goes the chilling proclamation by Motsoeneng. “Deal with” is such a polite euphemism for unsavoury things.
In-house protection of his position and ego sorted out for the time being, Hlaudi turned his baleful gaze to the rest of the (thankfully still mostly independent) South African media. He stated clearly that he intends to have the SABC “investigate” media houses – ostensibly to uncover alleged “horrific” working conditions – and that he intends to “shame” media houses that report negatively on the SABC. The quoted terms are his. The message, veiled though it is, is simple: follow my lead, or I'll get you for daring to defy me.
The COO's incredibly rude treatment of callers on a Lotus FM talk show is almost worthy of a whole article by itself. Clearly, he cares little for minority communities, and the will have to just “deal with it”. The rainbow that our nation should be will be a uniform sunny yellow when it gets through the growing filter he is forcing upon the SABC.
Any journalist or pro-democracy activist would be able to wax lyrical for hours upon hours – or pages upon pages – about how Hlaudi Motsoeneng is failing the SABC, failing South Africa and failing our hard-won Constitution. He is setting up the SABC, our national voice, for a fall, and taking us with it. He has insulted us, the South African public, he takes more of our money each year and his attempts a cultivating an Apartheid-style censorship culture at our public broadcaster (which he seems to consider a state broadcaster) never cease, and never cease to disgust or astound free-thinking citizens.
Hlaudi Motsoeneng is not progressive. He is not an asset; he is a liability and a dangerous one at that. Hlaudi is, to quote his arrogance, “Hlaudi Motsoeneng, baby!”
We, the South African public, cannot allow him to continue his madness at the SABC. If we do let him get away with it, we give up our freedom, and that freedom was bought far too dearly to be given up for some sunshine reporting.
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