Senior SABC execs continue to receive inflated salaries‚ DA charges
Top management at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) continued to earn inflated salaries for the year ending March 2018‚ the DA charged on Thursday.
The party said it gleaned this information from the public broadcaster’s 2017/18 annual report‚ which was tabled in Parliament.
“The report also reveals a public broadcaster that is commercially insolvent and received a disclaimed audit opinion from the Auditor-General‚” DA shadow minister of communications Phumzile Van Damme said.
She said the Auditor-General also found that the SABC incurred R571-million irregular expenditure in the 2017/18 financial year‚ leaving the public broadcaster with the irregular expenditure balance of R5-billion.
Van Damme said the wasteful expenditure incurred in the same period was R84-million and the financial loss for the year was R622-million.
Van Damme further added that cash flow for the year was at minus R1.2-billion.
She said top management for the year ending March 31‚ 2018 earned exactly the same inflated salaries as during the era of former chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
She said the basic salary of the Group CEO was R6.5-million‚ that of the chief financial officer was R4.1-million and the COO earned R2.7-million.
The group executives salaries ranged from R3.8-million for the head of television to R3.5-million for group executive of risk and governance‚ she said.
Van Damme said the SABC‚ in a statement earlier this week‚ said the salaries of the recently appointed executive board members and executive management had been significantly reduced‚ but refused to reveal the amount of the reduced salaries.
“This would mean the [group CEO] and CFO hired in June 2018 may have received reduced salaries‚ and the COO‚ Chris Maroleng‚ appointed on January 2018‚ earned the same salary as Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
“It is utterly baffling why the SABC will not reveal the reduced salaries of its top management‚” Van Damme said.
She said the reduced salaries should be a source of pride and a way to build confidence that the era of SABC management feeding at the trough had come to an end.
The SABC on Thursday said the salaries of the Group CEO‚ CFO and COO are recorded in the annual results of the corporation and would be contained in the 2018/19 annual results.
“However‚ the SABC wishes to put on record that the total current salaries of these executive directors have been significantly reduced‚” SABC spokesperson Neo Momodu said.