Johannesburg – Parliament may have roasted Hlaudi Motsoeneng, but viewers of SABC’s Morning Live were reminded of his largesse when they had to endure a praise song for the former chief operating officer that ran seven minutes into the news bulletin.
According to SABC staffers no one wanted to pull the plug on the song on Tuesday morning, sung by an obscure Lesotho music group, because they feared being fired.
“Leave him (Hlaudi Motsoeneng) alone,” the song went: “Hlaudi wants African music to grow. We thank God for Hlaudi Motsoeneng. May God protect him for us. We love him.”
The band, the Lesotho Allstars, praised Motsoeneng for introducing a policy of playing 90percent local music on the state broadcaster.
SABC staffers approached social activist Yusuf Abramjee.
“They said that the instruction came from up top, they said they couldn’t cut to the news,” he said.
DA communications spokeswoman, Phumzile van Damme, said she would be asking questions in Parliament about the incident. “This is not the first time that he has done this.
“This seems to be a clear intention by Hlaudi to get public support.
“And he is likely to have paid for them too,”she said.
Spokesman for the SABC Kaizer Kganyago said the incident was “neither here nor there”.
“Are we saying people can’t (be) writing songs?” he said.
He added that programmes often ran over into the news bulletin. Kganyago said the musicians were not paid.