DA to take Muthambi to court

The DA is taking Communications Minister Faith Muthambi (left) (Image GCIS) to court over her decision to appoint Hlaudi Motsoeneng (Image: SABC) as chief operations officer of the SABC.

DA leader Helen Zille said the party had begun the litigation.

"We are standing up for the rights of every South African to have a properly governed and managed public broadcaster."

She said the party's resort to litigation was in line with Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's report into the affairs of the SABC in February.

In the report, Madonsela found that Motsoeneng had lied about his academic qualifications and abused his powers [as acting chief operations officer] by increasing his salary three times in one year - from R1.5m to R2.4m.

Madonsela said that he was responsible for the "purging" of senior staff and for labour disputes that had cost the embattled SABC millions.

Madonsela also found that Motsoeneng had irregularly increased the salary of some employees, adding R29m to the corporation's salary bill.

Zille said the DA would tell the court that Madonsela's findings had not been taken into consideration when Muthambi secured Motsoeneng's permanent appointment.

"Appointing someone known to be dishonest and willing to abuse his power can never be rational."

Source: The Times, via I-Net Bridge