Bongani Khumalo‚ who resigned from the board in 2015 after several run-ins with Communications Minister Faith Muthambi‚ told the Parliamentary inquiry into the crisis at the public broadcaster that the issues at the corporation were not necessarily about the structure of the organisation‚ but about “attitudes and behaviour”.
“I would like to call upon the relevant structures of Parliament to take responsibility for what has happened at the [SABC]‚” said Khumalo.
He suggested that MPs be more stringent when appointing board members and also offer them training especially in terms of corporate governance principles. The crisis at the SABC was also symptomatic of corporate governance issues that most state owned entities continue to grapple with‚ said Khumalo.
He told the inquiry that he resigned from the board in early 2015 after publicly challenging the board’s controversial decision to back the appointment of Hlaudi Motsoeneng as permanent chief operating officer in 2014.
Motsoeneng was appointed despite a damning report by the public protector that found that he had fabricated a matric qualification‚ purged those he disagreed with‚ and irregularly increased his salary from R1.5m to R2.4m in one year.
