MagRush writer | September 10, 2019

The erratic Hlaudi Motsoeneng took to the “Zondo Commission” of inquiry revealing from how he relished curry at the infamous Gupta family house in Saxonwold, Johannesburg, to “no one was better that me” rant at the SABC. Playing the hubris card claiming that even “if SABC can be given a bailout”, the current management will never take SABC anywhere.

Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the Ex-Chief Operating Officer (COO) of South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), appeared on Tuesday at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.

Delivering evidence orally pertaining to his tenure at the SABC, the ever sanguine Motsoeneng was at his animated and incoherent best.

“I am declaring in front of you that I don’t have matric,” Motsoeneng blurting out before judge Zondo. Every witness take the ritualistic “Oath” before giving evidence and Motsoeneng did not disappoint to live up to the truth albeit sprinkling a dash of curry from his (former) handlers, the infamous Gupta family.

As usual, Hlaudi Motsoeneng got carried away and boosted that he lectured at Wits Business School and some of the contents of his apparent “lecture” have been incorporated into the institution’s syllabus, a hollow assertion Wits University refuted outright.

The former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, he continued, was disingenuous on her report. The Public Protector report on SABC – titled“When Governance and Ethics Fail” – found that Motsoeneng’s appointment as SABC COO was irregular and that he raised his salary three times in a year from R1, 5-million to R2, 4-million.

Continuing to give evidence Motsoeneng said, “there are many people at the SABC who don’t have matric, talent is more important than education.”

However, Motsoeneng advanced that the public broadcaster appointed him after he took the same position on an acting capacity for two years. “I didn’t even apply,” Motsoeneng responding to how he was hired, “I was headhunted.”