To
Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA)
From
Don
Subject
SABC Contracts
Date
1 September 2020 10:13 p.m.
Dear Standing Committee on Public Accounts,

Please take the following into account on SABC contracts:

1. The CEO & CFO is not fit for duty, on his and her watches the SABC continues to record massive losses and terminated key employee contracts in both the finance and IT departments e.g. CFC, Head of Treasury etc. Whilst keeping incompetant permanent staff that openly watch Youtubes, play computer games or sleep in offices/cubicles on the job. Senior independent, freelance and fixed term contractors are either suspended, unlawfully terminated or contracts are not renewed despite having worked as permanent employees for several years on rolling renewed unlawful temp contracts and doing the work that helped sustain the business, whilst the aforementioned permanent employees are retained within the SABC and add no value. Compare employees retained vs. employees exited vs. skills audit compliance and contract types

2. Investigate the Microsoft SharePoint contract and the army of Business Analysts/Specialists that are/were employed several or more years ago and delivered nothing, yet are still in the SABC's employ. The business case for this multi million zar Microsoft contract, and implementation failure thereof, was hidden from scrutiny by the acting head of commercial enterprises in the dual role as head of the ERP IT departments. Conveniently contractors were brought in and instructed to develop/code a custom solution using the ERP system to cover up the MS SharePoint failed project funded by the Commercial Enterprises/Sales department.

3. Multiple software license and hardware agreements are/were procured and amounted to nothing more than shelf ware & wasteful spend. The management heads of the ERP IT, Finance, Procurement, Engineering Sevices & HR departments, amongst others, as project sponsors, failed to deliver succesful implementation projects of the software & hardware purchased. The systems that run the SABC are, as a result, outdated and not aligned to the so called digitally transformed enterprise SABC claims to be. e.g. TV Licenses, Scanners,
HR Performance Management Systems, Sales etc.

4. All commercial contracts on the, now decommissioned CRM systems, must be investigated. During the tenor of the PEP CEO, now infamous and no longer with the SABC, the SABC IT staff, under duress with the tacit approval of the current finance and IT leadership, was forced to "fast-track" aquisition contracts as a means to expedite questionable payments, not subject to procurement scrutiny or policy, as a direct raid on the public purse. The TV/Radio content of such multi million zar contracts that were, never delivered, awarded to shell companies, payments approved before contract signed/approved in the system and paid in full despite subject to milestone progress payments/billing etc. e.g. Local Sport/Boxing, Sports Studio Revamping/ Local Soapies etc.

5. Investigate "fruitless and wasteful expenditure tracking systems" effectiveness, usage and adoption as per the Auditor General request several years ago? It was reported by SABC it was delivered & live however there is no visibility if the system has ever been used, or is in use to date, and the efficacy thereof on rooting out corruption & mismanagement at the broadcaster?

Regards,
Don.