The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has reconsidered its earlier judgment and granted former SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng the right to challenge the SABC and the SIU’s verdict to force him to pay the millions of rands in bonuses he received from the public broadcaster.
In 2016, the SABC board paid Motsoeneng an R11-million fee, but this has since been declared unlawful and invalid by the Joburg High Court, ordering him to repay it back to the public broadcaster.
With interest added, the money he must pay back has ballooned to R18-million.
Motsoeneng was paid the amount by the previous SABC board under questionable circumstances for negotiating a deal with MultiChoice for broadcast rights‚ including access to the SABC archives.
In its judgment of December 2021, the Joburg high court ordered Motsoeneng to pay the amount he received as “a success fee amount to R11 508 549.12” within 7 days of the court order, with an interest rate of 15.5% per annum calculated from September 13, 2016”.
He previously had said he did nothing wrong when receiving a “success fee” .
Motsoeneng appealed the decision imposed by the SABC, SABC Pension Fund and SIU, to force him to pay millions of rands back to the broadcaster.
On January 23, the SCA dismissed Motsoeneng’s application for leave to appeal with costs.
But the SCA has made a U-turn and ordered that Motsoeneng’s application for leave to appeal be referred to the court for reconsideration.
“The application for the appeal is referred for oral argument in terms of Section 17(2)(d) of the Superior Courts Act 10 of 2013. The parties must be prepared, if called upon to do so, to address the court on the merits. For this purpose, the applicant is to file six copies of the initial application for leave to appeal in terms of Section 17(2)(f) of the Superior Courts Act 10 of 2013 within one month of the date of this order,” reads the order.
In his replying affidavit, which we have seen, Motsoeneng argues the SABC paid him R6.7- million, and that the broadcaster had paid the SA Revenue Service (Sars) an amount of R4.7-million.
He argued that the order that said he must “pay the SABC the monies paid to Sars was unfounded in both fact and law and was unjust and ought to be varied”.
“I submit that this was a serious misdirection in the court’s determination of a just and equitable remedy as required by Section 172 of the Constitution. This is what this court missed. Another grave injustice to me in this matter is the fact that in crafting a just and equitable remedy, the High Court ordered me to pay interest on the money that I was ordered to pay. That includes interest on the money SABC paid to Sars and interest on the money SABC paid to me.
“This is unheard of. The SABC has recovered monies from employees in the past but never claimed interest. It is now claiming interest from me whilst it was the SABC that made an unlawful decision to pay me. How could such remedy be just, let alone equitable? This is what this court missed, and which warrants a reconsideration,” he stated in his affidavit, dated March 10
Speaking to Sunday World this week, Motsoeneng said that he believed the prospect of success in his application had been enhanced, considering he had been granted leave to appeal.
“If there were no prospects of success for me, the Supreme Court of Appeal could have not reconsidered its decision to grant me leave to appeal. This was the decision of the SABC to pay me, I was not involved in that. During my time at the broadcaster, we have never asked any government bailouts. I have been against this thing of the SABC going to ask for bailouts,” he said. “SABC and SIU are going to lose, as they don’t have any case against me.”
Responding to Hlaudi’s claims, SABC group executive Mmoni Seapolelo said: “The SABC is aware of the Supreme Court of Appeal order dated 25 April 2023. As always, the corporation does not litigate through the media. Thus, our stance will be ventilated in court”
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