The Johannesburg high court ruled on Monday that former SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng and nine other former executives will not be liable to repay almost R2.5m used to pay music legends in 2016.
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the SABC had hauled the former executives, including Motsoeneng and former GCEO James Aguma, to the court in a bid to appeal against a decision of the Special Tribunal that the debt had prescribed.
The court found that to rule differently would offend against the Prescription Act and render it ineffective.
“In this case, the appellants [SABC and SIU] would therefore not be entitled to recover any monies, because the OPCOM [SABC operations committee] decision would have been valid until set aside and with no retrospective effect,” the court ruled.
Their decision led to the establishment of the Mzansi Music Legends scheme which was partially implemented before it was frozen and abandoned after 53 musicians had been paid R50,000 each, in 2016 and 2017.
The SABC and the SIU who got the Special Tribunal to set aside the controversial 2016 decision, wanted to recover more than R2.4.m from Motsoeneng and the nine other executives.
The executives successfully argued that the SABC was aware in 2017 that the decision to pay the musicians was irregular after receiving a report of a forensic investigation it had launched but waited until January 2021 before instituting legal steps to recover the money.
The 53 music legends, among them Blondie Makhene, Abigail Kubeka, Marah Louw and the late Steve Kekana, were paid in recognition of their exploitation under apartheid when the SABC had used them without paying due royalties
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