The Special Investigation Unit (SIU) told parliament on Tuesday that a warrant of execution against assets belonging to former SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng is expected in days to recover an R11.5m irregular bonus paid to him.
Since 2017, the investigative body has been probing maladministration in the SABC and trying to recover funds from irregular tenders, unlawful payments and corruption.
The SIU was reporting to the parliamentary standing committee on public accounts on Tuesday regarding progress in its investigations. It had delivered a report on its investigation to President Cyril Ramaphosa in December.
Motsoeneng, former group COO, earned a R11.5m bonus in 2016 for helping the public broadcaster to secure a controversial R1.2bn deal with MultiChoice, allowing it exclusive access to the SABC’s archives.
In February 2018, the SIU and the SABC jointly issued summons against Motsoeneng to recover the “success fee” plus interest. The high court in 2021 found the payment irregular and last year dismissed his appeal against its order that he repays the amount with interest, which comes to almost R18m.
In January, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed his leave to appeal with costs.
“Writs of execution are at court to be issued,” SIU investigator Gina Pretorius told parliament on Tuesday.
Civil action
The SIU is still pursuing the former board of directors and executives who authorised the payment should Motsoeneng not pay the R11.5m and has won some court action on this matter. The SIU is empowered to institute a civil action in the high court, or a special tribunal, to recover money lost to corruption and fraud.
It has recovered R27m from irregularly awarded tenders and bonuses at the state broadcaster. It says it has also saved R150m in cancelled irregular contracts that were made at the height of state capture.
Motsoeneng is already repaying a monthly amount of almost R50,000 towards a R1.2m bill that stems from SABC irregularly paying his legal fees, the parliamentary committee was told. A total of R234,833 costs have been recovered from him thus far.
It said in terms of the investigation relating to the success fee paid to Motsoeneng, the SIU referred three former SABC officials and two former board members to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in June 2020. In total it referred 29 people to the NPA for prosecution in 2018 to 2020 and requested a special prosecutor be appointed to drive SABC-related prosecutions.
Ending the standing committee on public accounts meeting that discussed arms dealer Denel’s outstanding financial results, financial challenges at Land Bank, and irregular expenditure at SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) and the SABC, chair Mkhuleko Hlengwa said: “I think it’s fundamentally clear from whatever vantage point you stand that state-owned enterprises are in trouble. And I think that should be cause for concern because by now we should have seen significant strides in improvement”.
SIU head advocate Andy Mothibi said it had uncovered “general abuse of power at the SABC by the board and senior managers” and “outdated policies and a bypassing of policies”, as well as a culture of fear and inaction.
“We say the consequence management [was problematic], but it’s actually a lack of consequence management.”
The cash-strapped public broadcaster has operated without a board since October 2022.
Pretorius told parliament the SIU approached the previous SABC board and offered its advisory services to help it prevent a recurrence of the serious maladministration that prompted the investigation.
The SIU bears the cost of organising this campaign, but is amenable to contributions to assist in facilitating it, she said.
“Unfortunately, the SABC did not take that initiative, but we will, again, engage with the new board as to options available to them,” Pretorius said.
The SIU investigated evidence indicating irregularities in the awarding of various contracts, including to Vision View Productions, Lornavision, Lezaf Consulting, Gekkonomix (trading as Infonomix), Asanta Sana, Foxton Communicating and Mott MacDonald. The Lornavision contract was set aside by the high court.
It has since recovered R6.3m from Vision View and R1.2m from Mott MacDonald. The SIU is trying to recover R62.7m from Lornavision directors and former CEO James Aguma as the firm is unable to pay it.
Correction: March 2 2023
An earlier version of this story referred to a contract with advisory firm SekelaXabiso as being irregular. However, the firm won its case against the SIU and SABC, and had its contract deemed lawful and was paid for its work. We regret the error.
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