Cape Town - The Democratic Alliance on Thursday sent a formal request to Public Protector Thuli Madonsela asking her to probe SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s latest pay increase to R3.7 million a year.
The request followed a day after the SABC’s annual report revealed that Motsoeneng’s annual package had increased by R912 000 in the 2014/15 financial year.
Motsoeneng has dismissed questions about the increase as racist, telling a media briefing: “It is not a sin for a black person to earn more money.”
In the DA’s letter to Madonsela, the party’s communications spokesman, Gavin Davis, said Motsoeneng’s salary progression seemed inappropriate, and more so because she had already faulted him in a 2014 report for ensuring that his salary was increased three times in the space of a year.
Madonsela in that report, titled “When Governance and Ethics Fails”, directed the South African Broadcasting Corporation to institute disciplinary proceedings against Motsoeneng for this and covering up his lack of a matric certificate.
Said Davis: “Hlaudi Motsoeneng was already earning an artificially inflated salary, which your office found to be irregular, when he was acting chief operations officer. Mr Motsoeneng’s latest increase - by about R912 000 in the 2014/15 in this financial year - therefore appears to be built upon layers of irregularities, and artificially inflated as a result.”
The financial report showed that the broadcaster incurred a R401 million loss, while Motsoeneng’s annual pay package shot up to R3 78 million a year.
Davis asked Madonsela to investigate other matters, notably the decision to appoint Motsoeneng as COO on a permanent basis in July despite her adverse findings.
He also asked that she probe irregular expenditure of R413 793 in the last financial year, and payouts of millions to former chief operating officer Lulama Mokhobo and former group executive Phil Molefe.
The DA has gone to court to have Madonsela’s earlier recommendations against Motsoeneng implemented and a ruling is pending in the Supreme Court of Appeal.
ANA