Who+is+bringing+SABC+into+disrepute,+Rob+Rose,+Business+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 23 October 2006
=Who exactly is bringing SABC into disrepute?=


 * Rob Rose**

IT SEEMS SABC’s AM Live presenter John Perlman is headed for a disciplinary inquiry — which should, at the very least, trigger alarm over a corporate culture that must be rippling with eggshell trepidation of arbitrary victimisation.

After all, how is it that Perlman can be comprehensively vindicated by a commission of inquiry, yet still be up on disciplinary charges?

Perlman famously contradicted SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago during an AM Live radio broadcast, when Kganyago denied a ban on commentators. Perlman said an instruction to avoid certain commentators had in fact been given.

The SABC commission found that “Perlman was presented with an official statement by the SABC which he knew, from personal experience, to be untrue.

“He had to decide whether to perpetuate that untruth or to confront it. He chose the latter. In light of the evidence which has been produced before this Commission, we cannot fault him for doing so,” it said.

So what then are the grounds for a disciplinary inquiry?

In an editorial, SABC CEO Dali Mpofu says Perlman was accused of “bringing the organisation into disrepute by contradicting its official spokesman on air without exhausting internal procedures”.

If that is the crime of which Perlman stands accused by Mpofu, this is deeply troubling. Perlman would only have erred had he let the SABC’s statement, which the commission found to be “misleading”, go unchallenged. (Mpofu cannot seriously think editorial policies of interrogating the truth need not apply to his own organisation.)

So if employees who do their job are fair game for sanction, what sort of corporate culture does the SABC intend to create?

The commission said its findings suggest “an atmosphere of fear and distrust” and that “one would not want a situation where every decision sees the would-be decision maker scurrying back to a ‘policy bible’ to see what can be justifiable”.

SABC head of news Snuki Zikalala also faces a disciplinary inquiry. However, in his case, the commission’s findings did not exonerate him in the least.

The SABC should heed the commission’s views on eliminating the fear of “victimisation” among staff. And if Mpofu wants to know where to start in this regard, he only need look within.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/bottomline.aspx?ID=BD4A299818**

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