Hlaudi fights for Guptas, slams ‘captured’ blacks

Former SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng has ridiculed those black people who marched for President Jacob Zuma to step down on Wednesday afternoon.

The embattled former SABC boss urged people not listen to them, as they have allegedly been captured “by the Western”, adding the anti-Zuma marchers in previous weeks have not been a true reflection of the views of the whole of South Africa.

He said that these were the same black people fighting against transformation in terms of content at the national broadcaster. Hlaudi, who calls himself “a fighter”, said Zuma was only fighting for radical economic transformation.

“I’m saying to South Africans, don’t listen to black people who are being taken by the Western [sic]. Don’t listen to them. Because black people, most of them, some of them have been captured.

“You can see what they are fighting for. I will never be proud when a black man stands and says look we are not supporting local content. We are not supporting President Zuma when he’s saying radical transformation in South Africa. We have people toyi-toying. And people who are toyi-toying, they are minor. You see people are saying they are many. Those people are not many. They are not representing 50 million people of South Africa.”

He said the country had people with “amazing” talent, and there was no need to use foreign content at the public broadcaster – adding the Broadcasting Act made provision for promoting local talent at the SABC.

“We have people with amazing talent. We have people who are better than those musicians outside this country. And we must promote our own musicians.

“When you read the Broadcasting Act – I’m not a lecturer, I’m not going to lecture you here – but you need to go and read. The role of SABC is to promote local content. It’s to promote production houses in South Africa.

“So you can’t have the Bold and Beautiful [from] outside this country, when you have writers in this country … creative people who can write their own stories, and talk about their own culture and tradition in South Africa.

“So when we came with this 90%, we were informed by the needs of people.”

Motsoeneng became an overnight hero among some South African artists when he declared the 90% local content rule at the broadcaster’s radio stations.

Don’t chase the Guptas away

Motsoeneng said that chasing the Guptas out of South Africa and closing their “factories” would have a negative impact on South Africans and cost jobs.

This should not be allowed to happen, he said, and further asked why other foreign owners of factories were not chased out of the country, as was happening to the Guptas.

Motsoeneng defended the spending of the SABC on the Gupta-linked New Age business breakfast. Axed SABC contributing editor Vuyo Mvoko revealed that resources for the state broadcaster’s show Morning Live were used to fund the controversial breakfasts.

“What are the implications for South Africa if we chase other people away who are working for the Guptas? South Africans, when you chase them away, you are saying ‘go back to the shacks where you come from’. That is what people are saying because we need to say ‘good governance’, which I support, but don’t go beyond to issues of chasing people away.

“You want to close their factory. Because those factories assist South Africans. So we should not allow that as South Africans. So that people chase other people away. Why can’t they chase other people away who are not South Africans? Because there are big companies which are not South Africans (sic).”

‘Krish Naidoo is a liar’ 

Motsoeneng also took a swipe a SABC board member Krish Naidoo, calling him a liar and a “sellout”. He claimed Naidoo lied under oath during the proceedings of a parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating the board of the public broadcaster.

Motsoeneng said he didn’t understand how Naidoo made it to the new interim board, when he was among the board members declared unfit by the ad hoc committee.

Although without offering substantiation, the former SABC top man alleged Naidoo was compromised because he worked for “someone” in ANC headquarters, Luthuli House.

“Let me tell you about Krish Naidoo. You see when you are a sellout, you will be a sellout forever. He’s going to sell [out] these other board members again. Let me tell you about Krish Naidoo. Krish Naidoo I don’t understand. From the ad-hoc committee … from parliament. I don’t understand because they said that board is not fit, and when I read the report, there’s nowhere where they are saying at least Krish Naidoo is right. When you read that report, they said the whole board was a mess.

“If the whole board was a mess, why is Krish Naidoo [still] there. Why Krish Naidoo is there?

“But this Krish Naidoo goes to parliament and lie under oath … lie under oath. And remember the ad-hoc committee said that all those who lied under oath … they should be investigated. Now where’s that process of investigating people who lie under oath, when the liar is in the board? You can see it was a political agenda. And how can Krish Naidoo become a board member when he works at Luthuli House?

“If we are saying we want a credible SABC, when do you allow someone who works for someone in Luthuli House … who push agenda for political reasons? And I warned them in a board meeting to say, here we don’t deal with politics. Here we deal with South Africans. That’s on record at the SABC.

“So Krish Naidoo is not credible.”