Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - Former SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng says he will petition the Supreme Court of Appeal after the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, refused him leave to appeal its ruling that he has to pay back R11 million to the public broadcaster.
In terms of the ruling, he had to pay within seven days or lose his R8m pension fund.
Motsoeneng filed for leave to appeal the high court’s December 2021 ruling that he must “pay back the money” after the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the SABC took him to court over what has been described as a “success fee”.
The previous SABC board decided that Motsoeneng was deserving of an R11m success fee after he sourced funding to establish the 24-hour SABC news channel 404 on the DStv platform.
His efforts also resulted in another channel, 156, on DStv, namely Encore, which focused on reruns obtained from the SABC archives. The channel was brought to an end in May 2020 following controversies involving Motsoeneng’s name and DStv owners, MultiChoice.
“I will be approaching the Supreme Court in order to exercise my rights, which I feel have not been upheld in the previous and the recent judgment. I have carefully studied the Friday judgment and I believe that the court was wrong on facts and in law,” Motsoeneng told the Pretoria News yesterday.
According to Motsoeneng, the high court’s latest ruling went as far as correcting errors made in the December 2021 judgment.
“First, I never went to ask the high court to correct itself on any matter, but to allow me to take the judgment on review. To my dismay, the court came back with alterations to its previous ruling where I was told that I must pay R11m with 15.5% interest.
“Now, the judgment states that the issue of interest should be in line with regulations. This was in response to my arguments last year that interest rates are regulated by the Department of Justice, Constitutional Development and Correctional Services,” he said.
“That was ignored but has now been corrected when I never asked for the court to correct itself.
“Second, the court initially ruled that I pay back the money within seven days or risk my pension fund being taken.”
Motsoeneng said his legal representatives would decide the date for his application to be filed with the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The SIU and the SABC have welcomed Friday’s ruling that Motsoeneng pay back the money.
Pretoria News