SABC 'snubs' disabled, blacks

The SABC does not look after the needs of disabled people, and it fails dismally to look after black employees in junior positions. This is revealed in the SABC BEE verification report compiled by the National Empowerment Rating Agency and released in August. It also indicated that the SABC was snubbing black-owned companies. The report was given to the SABC board under Ben Ngubane and its senior managers, who kept the contents away from staff to prevent a revolt by union members. A similar report in July 2010 investigated the SABC’s BEE rating. It too indicated that the public broadcaster was giving few tenders to companies owned by blacks.

According to the 2010 rating, the SABC preferential procurement rating stood at 17.85 BEE score per element. The rate showed that the broadcaster was doing more business with white-owned companies, particularly in their TV and radio programming divisions. In August this year, the BEE score rate declined by 3.10 and it now stands at a score of 14.75 per element. In 2010, the public broadcaster’s BEE procurement recognition level stood at 110 percent and their BEE status was a level-three contributor. This year, their rating dropped to a level-four contributor and its BEE procurement recognition level dropped to 100 percent.

The report also showed that the SABC failed to meet its target of 2 percent to employ disabled black employees as a percentage of all such employees, using the adjusted recognition for gender. According to the report, the SABC achieved 0.0 percent in this category. The public broadcaster had also achieved nothing following its dismal failure to provide skills development for black employees with disabilities, as a percentage of leviable amounts using the adjusted recognition for gender. “The SABC [should be] an ideal place to be the voice of [the] disabled, but it is evidently not,” a source said. The SABC also set for itself a 3 percentage target to provide its black employees with skills development, but again it obtained 0.0 percent in that area.

The public broadcaster had also promised to ensure that 68 percent of its black employees would be in junior management positions, but according to the report only 59.8 percent were on board. The apparent lack of upward movement for black employees in the SABC has brought a lot of unhappiness, especially among affected people. Employees have questioned Ngubane and SABC CEO Lulama Mokhobo for their alleged bias towards white people. Insiders pointed to the suspension of the public broadcaster’s chief financial officer, Gugu Duda, saying that when she was served with her suspension letter, the board had appointed a white male, Tian Olivier, in an acting capacity. Olivier was appointed on September 10 and Duda was only served with a notice of suspension three days later, the insider said.

According to another insider, the board and Mokhobo then gave Olivier carte blanche to appoint people in senior positions. “He appointed three white people and ignored the rest of us. These positions, where these white people were appointed to, were previously advertised internally while Duda was in office. “People applied for those posts and interviews were expected to be held, but Olivier just appointed his own people there.” Asked to comment, SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago said: “Those are internal matters, we do not want to discuss them in the public space.”