Former SABC interim board to apply to have SIU report set aside

Former members of the SABC interim board will approach the court to review and set aside a  report by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) implicating them in “irregularities” in the awarding of a R185m tender for security services at the SABC.

The SIU said it seeks to have the contract between the public broadcaster and Mafoko Security Patrols reviewed and set aside after it found evidence suggesting “irregularities” in the procurement of security services from Mafoko by the former interim-board in 2017. 

Tebogo Malatji, the lawyer representing the embroiled former interim board members, said: “What is clear is that the interim board members are compelled to take the report on review with the courts as it is fundamentally flawed in its findings.”

In the report, the SIU said it will approach the court to try and  recoup monies lost due to the contract from the implicated board members.

The SIU said it will also bring an application to have the interim board members declared as delinquent. The implicated members include Khanyisile Kweyama, Mathatha Tsedu, John Matisonn, Krish Naidoo and Febe Potgieter-Gqubule.

Four former interim-board members resigned from the board in 2018 after being appointed in the previous year to help clean up the financially strapped public broadcaster. 

In March 2018, SABC chairperson Bongumusa Makhathini requested the SIU to probe the Mafoko tender to provide security services at the SABC’s headquarters in Auckland Park, Johannesburg and television outside broadcast.

Makhathini said: “The SABC board will support the application by the SIU to have the contract between the SABC and Mafoko Security Patrols reviewed and set aside.

“The SABC is in the process of preparing the court papers in this regard and will not comment further on the SIU report and related matters until these papers have been lodged in court.”

Lebo Nare, director-general of Mafoko Security Patrols, said: “The initial reporting had cast a lot of aspersions to our name and to our organisation because it created the impression [that] we had some form of corrupt relationship with board members. We don’t know those people, we are not part and parcel of the bidding process.”

Nare said although the SIU report had exonerated Mafoko, the company has found itself on the receiving end of a backlash regarding a decision they were not responsible for.