Labour court dismisses SABC's bid to set aside irregular appointments

The labour court on Friday dismissed an application launched by the SABC to have a number of appointments it deemed irregular declared invalid and set aside.

These appointments were made when Hlaudi Motsoeneng was COO at the state broadcaster.

On Friday, SABC News reported that there was jubilation in the courtroom when the judgment was passed.

When the SABC launched the application in August last year, it said these appointments were effected without following the relevant SABC policies.

At the time, the public broadcaster said 28 cases had been identified and that the ongoing investigation might reveal further irregular appointments.

The application by the SABC was heard in December.

During that hearing, the SABC’s head of legal services Ntuthuzelo Vanara said the case was important to the public broadcaster in terms of re-engineering its governance processes.

However, Hannes de Buisson, president of the Broadcasting, Electronic, Media and Allied Workers Union, said in December the SABC appeared to be over-eager in identifying issues that were not issues.

“We are of the view that no governance processes at all were breached,” Du Buisson said at the time.