Samro stops the music amidst corruption allegations

Source: © Al Jareera Al Jareera The people’s poet, Mzwakhe Mbuli has called for the dissolution of the South African Music Rights Organisation board

This was reported by the SABC and several other media outlets over the weekend.

Then on Friday the Daily Maverick reports that “staff went as far as to vacate their offices entirely, hosting an Extraordinary General Meeting online from an unknown location and going to great lengths to deny members access”.

This happened while other members of Samro were locked out from entering the organisation’s headquarters in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. They were demanding to be in the meeting physically.

The Sunday World reports that in the meeting itself, members such as Mbuli, Tebogo Sithathu, Vusi Leeuw, and the board member, Gabi le Roux, the producer of Mandoza’s all-time hit, Nkalakatha, protested and demanded that Nicholas Maweni, the Samro chairperson, recuse himself from chairing the meeting. They claimed that he was biased towards dealing with pertinent issues involving Samro.

Reports of financial mismanagement

Samro collects licence fees from establishments that use music, like clubs, broadcasters, retailers, digital service providers (DSPs) and many others, and then distributes these licence fees to members in the form of royalties.

However, there have been reports of financial mismanagement that involve the alleged corruption of R60m looted as well as abuse of power within the organisation.

Abuse of power refers to the suspension of the organisation’s COO, Mpho Mofikoe, who clashed with the CEO, Annabell Lebethe as well as the board members, over her being a whistleblower on graft at the collecting agency.

Mofikoe then took matters into her own hands when a forensic report on internal fraud allegations was buried.

Mofikoe noted, “The Fundudzi [forensic report into allegations of irregular payments of undocumented works] was very thorough.”

She added, “I know I’m going to be fired, but… I had to raise a grievance against the board because of the interference that is currently taking place by the board.”

COO suspension

Mofikoe was suspended within weeks of this, but Samro noted that: “Contrary to suggestions in the public domain, the COO’s precautionary suspension was not retaliatory, as has been suggested.

“Instead, it was in response to preliminary findings pointing to potential internal transgressions.

“The precautionary suspension is standard practice to allow an impartial process to proceed to its fair conclusion without interference. Samro has an obligation to protect the interests of both the employee and the organisation in this regard.

“Samro assures all stakeholders that all remedial processes, including the implementation of recommendations in the forensic report, and criminal investigations currently underway, are continuing uninterrupted.

The organisation takes seriously its obligation to ensure remedial actions and investigations continue without fear or favour until their just and final outcomes.”

This was reiterated in Daily Maverick. “In a written statement, Samro told Daily Maverick that Mofikoe’s “precautionary suspension” was not retaliatory. Instead, “it was in response to preliminary findings pointing to potential internal transgressions.” Samro did not clarify what those transgressions were.”

One scandal after the next

But now Mbuli has stated that R16m has been stolen at Samro, and there was a forensic that had to be instituted, and the results are very clear in the SABC article.

“Three members of the Samro board, out of a number of them, were implicated and tainted. But these people are maintained and protected by other board members because they all eat together.

So I think if you want to clear your name, rather than say ‘let me stand aside so that I am cleared. Allow investigation to take its course, but at Samro, we have bullies,” he adds in the report.

This is not the first time these allegations have been heard.

Over the past decade, Samro has attempted to shrug off one scandal after the next, each involving tens of millions of rands in members’ royalties that have allegedly been misappropriated by its staff and its most prominent members.

“These include Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Sheer Music Publishing, Active Music Publishing and VVP. Several of these entities have permanent seats on the board due to their dominance in the global market,” statesDaily Maverick.