The appointment of Hlaudi Motsoeneng to the position of acting Chief Operations Officer (COO) at the SABC is crushing expectations that the restructuring process will herald a new era of professionalism in the public broadcaster. It also raises new fears that the SABC will be further politicised by what appears to be a blatant political appointment.

I will be submitting parliamentary questions to the new Communications Minister, Dina Pule, to clarify the procedures followed in Motsoeneng’s appointment, and demand to know whether or not his questionable record was cleared before his appointment.

Motsoeneng’s appointment is problematic for a number of reasons:

* The COO position has not yet been advertised.

* It is unclear what processes were followed in his appointment.

* An internal audit in 2006 revealed that Motsoeneng apparently falsified his qualifications in his initial application to the SABC, claiming to have passed matric when in fact he had failed it twice.

* He has reportedly been dismissed from the SABC before for breaching SABC rules; a dismissal that was apparently endorsed by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).

* An internal audit at the SABC’s Bloemfontein office revealed that, during his tenure as Lesedi FM's current affairs executive producer, Motsoeneng was “unable to rise above office politics”, which affected “both newsroom staff and the SABC's image”.

* His reported ties to President Jacob Zuma seem to indicate that his appointment is the result of political favouritism.

Upon Motsoeneng’s appointment as Executive Manager for Stakeholder Management in August last year, the Democratic Alliance (DA) called for an investigation into what seemed to be a highly irregular rise to executive status for an employee with such a questionable record. No such investigation has been initiated.

On the contrary, Motsoeneng has been promoted to top management. His behaviour has been rewarded rather than punished, sending the wrong signal to other staff of the SABC and the public at large.

With the key positions of Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer at the SABC currently being advertised, we can only hope that Motsoeneng’s appointment is not a taste of things to come.