‘I’m going nowhere' says defiant SABC chair Maguvhe

06 October 2016 - 17:36 By Tmg Digital
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SABC board member and chairman Prof Mbulaheni Maguvhe‚ staged a walkout in the middle of the ad hoc committee meeting.
SABC board member and chairman Prof Mbulaheni Maguvhe‚ staged a walkout in the middle of the ad hoc committee meeting.
Image: Gallo Images

SABC board chairman Professor Mbulaheni Maguvhe has no intention of stepping down.

“I’m going nowhere‚” he told a media briefing on Wednesday afternoon.

Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications decided on Wednesday to institute a formal parliamentary inquiry into the fitness of the SABC board. The unanimous decision by the committee followed a marathon sitting dealing with the state broadcaster and its rapid decline in recent times. The committee also unanimously agreed that the incumbent board members should be requested to resign.

Maghuve said he had not received the letter from the parliamentary portfolio committee.

“I am still waiting for the letter that is supposed to be coming to me bullying me to resign.

"They want to make me‚ through the so-called inquiry‚ they want to make me become a coward and they even said :'Obviouly as individuals when they receive these letters they would resign'.”

Maghuve said he was not sure the letter was coming.

“Let the inquiry come. I am ready for it. So it means I am going nowhere‚” Maghuve said.

The parliamentary portfolio committee said on Wednesday there were serious challenges with the current board that needed urgent intervention.

The board had been summoned by the committee to give an account of the controversial appointment of the former chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng as Group Executive: Corporate Affairs.

Two non-executive members of the board‚ Krish Naidoo and Vusi Mavuso‚ tendered their resignations during Wednesday’s committee meeting.

The committee said these resignations had effectively rendered the SABC Board inquorate and that it could therefore not take any legal decisions.

The committee said it would also write to the remaining individual members of the SABC Board to give them the option of resigning before the inquiry begins‚ which would assist the committee to proceed with this matter.

Addressing the media at the SABC on Thursday‚ Maghuve said the treatment by the committee of the board was unfair.

“When questions were raised‚ there were two rounds. In the first round we were given an opportunity to respond.

“The last round of questions we were never given an opportunity to respond. The committee felt they needed to dissolve us. We were blamed for having fired board members and were told we did not have powers to do so.

“Unfortunately‚ some people don’t want to know‚ but the Companies Act‚ Section 72.1 gives us those powers‚” Maghuve said.

Maghuve also charged that one board member who was fired was involved in fraudulent conduct.

“I have got proof of that.”

Maghuve said the board was told to charge Motsoeneng‚ which the board duly did.

“We were told to institute a disciplinary inquiry chaired by an independent chair. Hlaudi was exonerated. Now we are told that was a whitewash.

“The problem with people is that they already have their own outcome.”

 

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