By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) head of news and current affairs Phathiswa Magopeni has questioned why she was excluded from remedying a mistake by her department, which aired an interdicted episode of Special Assignment.
Magopeni took a stand to give testimony in her disciplinary hearing on Tuesday.
She is accused of misconduct, negligence and bringing the public broadcaster into disrepute after investigative show Special Assignment aired a court-interdicted episode.
The hearing chaired by Nazeer Cassim SC, was told that the blunder happened when a repeat programme that was meant to replace it on October 26 was given the same code as the Special Assignment episode.
Magopeni said she only managed to produce a preliminary report based on reports she received from the news and video entertainment departments. These, she said, provided different versions of what happened.
“I would still need to do further investigations based on that there are two versions being presented.”
She said on the day she was charged, she had gone to a meeting with SABC chief executive Madoda Mxakwe with the intention to ask that a a joint investigation between news and video entertainment be conducted.
“Had we done the investigation prior to the charged and disciplinary hearing, probably the witnesses who came here might have been different. We are only getting information now and not through the investigation.
“Right now, we are here conducting an investigation through a disciplinary hearing. That’s my feeling in all the days I’ve been sitting here.”
Magopeni said she felt “singled out” by the SABC and could not fathom why she was the only one being disciplined before a thorough investigation to establish where fingers should be pointed.
According to SABC lawyer Michael Bill, Magopeni was the one with the jurisdiction to issue an instruction that the banned show be removed from the system.
Magopeni said this was because there was no instruction to remove it and that she believed such an instruction would only have come from SABC’s legal guru, advocate Ntuthuzelo Vanara’s office.
Special Assignment editor Busisiwe Ntuli, who was grilled on Monday, was the first to lay the blame at Vanara’s door.
Cassim said the blame game would not help him in any way because the question of who was to blame was “not before me”.
Speaking highly of Vanara’s involvement in the saga, Cassim said it was unfair to blame him in absentia when he had not been charged.
However, the case before him was simple and straightforward: could Magopeni have done anything to prevent contempt of court?
According to Cassim, all witnesses called by Magopeni to defend her had failed dismally to answer this question, but preoccupied themselves with a matter outside the inquiry’s terms of reference.
Cassim will issue his finding after Magopeni and the SABC’s legal teams submit closing written arguments to him no later than the end of business on Wednesday.