SABC Behind Closed Doors

Corruption, Lies & Cover Up

Brian Horn

This article is about corruption in the SABC, those behind it and the lengths they would go to cover up their role with the help of their colleagues in the Afrikaner Broederbond (Brotherhood), an under cover BOSS (Bureau of State Security) agent and a SAP (South Africa Police) officer.
SABC management had a significant number of Broederbond members, Dr Piet Meyer, who was Director-General from 1959 to 1980, was also chairman of the Broederbond from 1960 to 1972. A detailed insight into the Broederbond, with listing of members, can be found in the book “The Super Afrikaners – Inside the Afrikaner Broederbond” by Ivor Wilkins and Hans Strydom.

I joined the SABC in 1971, one of the first people to be hired to work solely on the project which brought color television to South Africa on January 6. 1976. By the time I left SABC in 1989 I had been senior management in both the television and computer service divisions. In the roles I had played a major role in the procurement process, writing, issueing and managing the evaluation of dozens of open tenders, involving tens of millions of Rands.

I left South Africa in Deceber 1989, with only a handful of people knowing I was going to the USA. I regret not having the chance to say goodbye to those I worked with at the SABC, or get to tell the reason why. My silence also cost me my relationship with my son, who took my move very badly. I decided on that path of action as others I was associated with also were persecuted as I shall describe and the last thing I wanted was for those after me was for them to get the government to revoke my passport.

1988

In 1988 two major changes occurred in the structure and management:

My first interaction with the new Chairman set the scene for the rest of my career with the SABC. We had two tenders (RFP's) out for computer equipment which had just closed, and recommendations had been submitted to the management committee for approval. These were for minicomputer systems and personal computers. The Professor was not happy with the recommendations and very clear in his orders, he thought the minicomputer contract should be awarded to a DEC equipment supplier in Braamfontein and the personal computers were to a company in the Eastern Cape. He advised that we should get quotations from these companies.
When the Professor was advised that his orders could not be implemented, he was far from happy, as he put it, he was in charge and we had to do as we were told. When it was brought to his attention that the two companies to whom he wanted the contracts awarded had not even submitted tender responses he gave the order to shut down the tenders without any contracts being awarded and to re-issue new tenders so his chosen vendors could submit bids.

I had never seen such blatant misuse of power and corruption. He made no attempt to hide his intentions. I am sure if his actions had been brought to the appropriate authorities he would had been struck of the role as a Professional Engineer. But then as you will see he was protected by a higher authority the Broederbond. His ethics left a lot to be desired. Little did I know at that time that I would be meeting several others who were no better.

I had been placed in a position, where as far as I was concerned, I was being told to commit a crime and if I did and the actions I took became public I would be the one taking the fall. I am sure the Professor would deny any involvement. It put me in a very difficult position, one which I knew I had to get out of as fast as possible. I went to visit Tilman Ludin, Chairman of the Siltek Group, and explained the situation to him. I knew he was buying up land and building game farms and I thought I could get a job with him managing operations in his new venture. Tilman asked me to reconsider leaving the SABC as he said I could do more good from within the SABC, than by leaving. That was in December 1988.

1989

I reported to H. P. (Phil) Bartel, General Manager: Computer Services, for whom I had worked for most of my career, and he was also not comfortable with the situation in which we had been placed. He knew his might not end well for either one or both of us. Realizing that having to re-issue the tenders without an award and then awarding the new contracts to companies that we had never dealt with before could raise questions, he knew we had to take steps for protect ourselves. The solution was to get a company that was a consultant to ARMSCOR, to review the new tenders to ensure they were technically sound and were not biased. This we did and the two new tenders were released in April 1989. It should be noted that there were no changes in the content of the either of the tenders from the original version.

During those first few months of 1989 I realized that unless I was prepared to change my ethical standards my career with the SABC was over and after 18 years it was time to move on. I had started my career in television with Rhodesia Television and it was what I loved and was the field I wanted to stay in. During my career with the SABC I had made a lot of overseas trips to Europe, Canada, Japan, and the USA to visit other broadcast organizations and equipment suppliers.

In May of 1989, after the new tenders were released, they typically had a four-week period before responses had to be submitted, I took off on a vacation to the USA. It was not a vacation as such, but rather a job search, I had decided I was going to emigrate to the USA. I did have one obstacle to overcome, due to my position as a Chief Engineer at the SABC my contract required that I give six months’ notice if I resigned. One good thing I had was with all the travelling I had done for the SABC I had used very little of my vacation time and had over 6 months due for which I would be paid out.

The trip to the USA was successful, I found a job with a television equipment manufacturer in California, who was prepared to wait until January 1990 for me to commence work. I was also successful in getting a work permit for the USA. I headed back to South Africa with plans to resign at the end of May, work my six months resignation period, spend Christmas with my family in Cape Town, and then start a new career in California.

While I was on my overseas trip the SABC management implemented a number of personnel changes:

While I was away the Professor must have decided that it was not in his best interests to let me be involved in adjudicating those two tenders that were so important to him. In those days we had intense security with access to Broadcast Center controlled by security guards aided by x-ray machines and metal detectors, just like the airports of today. If you carried a firearm, which I did not, you had to leave it in a locker at the entrance with security. When I arrived at the security check point, I was advised that I must immediately report to Personnel (Human Resources).

I proceeded to 26th floor, to be met by Fred Coop, Head: Personnel Services. He advised me that my position in the SABC had been changed and that I was now Chief Engineer: Special Projects. Carl Ferreira who had reported to me and was in charge of “security installations”, had taken over my position. As a chief officer I was entitled to a secretary, and so I retained my secretary, Lorraine Smit. I must admit the change came as a shock, but did it really matter I was going to resign.

I met with Neel Smuts and Dr. S.P. Viljoen on June 5th to discuss the reason for the changes to my position. I was told by Neel that he was not prepared to appoint me Head: Computer Technology due to "staff handling problems" of which he had "first hand information". He would not provide details on what that information was or were he got it.

At that time, I was Chief Engineer: Computer Services with my responsibilities being all the technical aspects of the corporation’s computer services. Carl was the odd one in my department, with no computer or broadcast background, but was tasked with handling the technical aspects of the SABC security systems. He was sent on a few overseas trips with me, I think to keep an eye on what I was doing. He used to occasionally come up with comments regarding future actions they SABC had planned. When questioned once about where he got this highly confidential information, he advised me that the drivers the SABC employed to shuttle senior management and other VIP’s around listened in on the conversations and reported back to him. I am sure was an undercover BOSS (Bureau of State Security) agent. I had one other undercover BOSS agent on my staff, Wickus van der Meulen, and I had seen his BOSS security card.

I thought the summary action taken by the SABC constituted an unfair labor practice, something we had been trained on only a few months earlier. When I advised Fred Coop as to my thoughts he was certainly taken back and excused himself from the room for a few minutes to go and discuss it with Dan Esterhuyzer, the Director of Human Resources. He advised me that the actions that had been taken did put the SABC in a bad position, but would not be reversed, instead I would be offered a severance package. I was asked to come back the following day to discuss details.

I went to see a lawyer I knew, Michael Judin of Goldman, Judin and Werner, who had done legal work for me in the past. Michael confirmed that it was an unfair labor practice, but as his firm did not handle labor relations cases, he referred me to A. Levy & Associates, a firm that was building a labor relations practice. I met with Pat Stone at A. Levy & Associates who advised me that they in the early stages of building a labor relations team and did not want to launch this division of their practice at that time by taking on one of South Africa’s statutory bodies. They were however very interested in learning from it and would take on my case as pro bona, briefing me on how to handle the process with the SABC, and in exchange I would brief them on the interaction I had with the SABC.

I met with Fred Coop the following morning and he advised me that the severance package offer was off the table as the SABC was charging me with two counts of misconduct:

If found guilty I could be fired without the SABC having any liability for an unfair labor practice.

At that time, I had been involved in over 150 tenders, being on the adjudication team of the TV1 equipment tenders, responsible for the issuing and adjudication of all the TV2/3 equipment tenders, and responsible for all the computer systems tenders since 1982. These represented tens of millions of Rands of equipment purchases. The only bias or irregularities I was aware of in these tenders consisted of:

The way the charges were to be handled was there would be a tribunal with a the panel consisting of Quentin Green (Chairman, Deputy Director General: Finance and Administration), Neel Smuts (Deputy Director General: Technology), Leander Gaum (Chief Legal Adviser) and Fred Coop (Head: Personnel). Steve de Necker (Head: Internal Audit) would lead the charges. I would be allowed to have one person accompany me to the hearings, that person was Theunis Nel, someone whom I had worked with for several years and for whom I have the greatest respect. I first met Theunis in the early 1970’s and we are still the best of friends today. I would also be allowed to call witnesses in my defense.

Based on the briefing I gave the Levy & Associates they recommended that when the tribunal started commenced, I ask Neel Smuts to recuse himself since he was the one whose actions resulted in my filing the unfair labor practice claim. It was amazing that the SABC appointed Neel Smuts to the tribunal which had been convened to get him out of the situation he had created by initiating the unfair labor action. This was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, he was upset and did not know how to handle it. It was the last thing he expected. The hearing was adjourned to the following day so that the tribunal could get advice on how to handle the situation.

The following day when the tribunal resumed, I was advised Neel was not going to recuse himself, but my objection to him being on the tribunal would be noted. We had a further day’s delay because the only witness I wanted to call, Phil Bartel, was in Port Elizabeth on business.

Finally, the tribunal started, and I got to call Phil Bartel, my one any only witness whose testimony totally destroyed the charges against me. On the issuing of biased tenders charge he explained it was not true and explained the precautions that had been taken. On the staff handling problems charge he was not aware of any and advised I had been given no warnings in this regard. I had reported to Phil Bartel for most of my 18 years with the SABC.

With the tribunal over and the charges against me dropped Neel Smuts had one last question, “What did I know about SABC operations in the USA”. I must admit it gave me great satisfaction to tell him that that information was on a need-to-know basis and that he was not on the list. I recommended he go ask the Director General, Wynand Harmse, if he wanted his question answered.

I met with Fred Coop after the hearing and asked him if I copy have a copy of the transcript of the proceedings. He advised he that I could not have one, the tribunal had been an embarrassment and they could not allow the information out. I was advised we would meet again the following day to discuss a severance package.

What I had succeeded in doing was embarrassing a whole lot of members of the Broederbond and their minions. Neel Smuts had just been appointed Deputy Director General: Technical and one of his first actions had resulted in the first unfair labor practice claim being filed against the SABC. Not a great way to start of his newly appointed position. I did not realize at that time the lengths the SABC would go to cover up the situation they had put themselves in. Neel did not want to be the one responsible for the SABC having to pay out a large sum of money due to his bungling the transition of my post to Carl Ferreira. Well they had to come up with plan C, since A and B failed. It was time to ask for help, guess where that came from?

At 7:00 am the following morning there was some heavy knocking on my front door. I opened it to meet a Lt. Col. Prinsloo (SAP) and two of his men from the South African Police Fraud Squad. They had a handwritten warrant to search my home, the SABC had accused me of defrauding them and getting payments for companies in exchange for sending business their way. I requested a copy of the handwritten search warrant, but was told I could not have one. The police team seized all my financial documents and spent several hours going through them and questioning me trying to find something wrong. The one thing they had never heard of was a PC (personal computer) or spreadsheet (VisiCalc), remember this was 1989, so they finally left with all my financial documents. I had a copy of all the transactions in VisiCalc, which I took to my lawyer, Michael Judin. His only comment was you must have upset some very important people because a Lt. Col. in the South African Police never leaves his office, never mind going on a raid with some of his men.

When I met with Fred Coop later that morning, he knew about the police action and advised me that there would be no further negotiations until the police charges were resolved. Something that never happened. I contact the Brigadier on a few occasions and asked him when he was going to stop harassing me, this answer “when you stop harassing the SABC”. I resigned from the SABC at the end of May 1989 and started working off my six-month resignation period. I helped by secretary, Lorraine Smit, get a job in the news department. I asked the Director General, Wynand Harmse, to review my case, but he was not prepared to get involved in anything the Chairman, Christo van Viljoen, had started. He did however tell me to take the remainder of my resignation period off, so I had a long vacation before immigrating to the USA.

Epilogue

The following people involved in the article are listed as members of the Broederbond in the book “The Super Afrikaaners” – H. C. (Christo) Viljoen, J. N. Swanepoel, G. J. Yssel.

Attempts to contact and meet with Neels Smuts and Carl Ferreira have not been successful. I think neither of them can be proud of their role in this case. I wonder what their reward was. Neel left the SABC and went to Sentech when SABC spun off the transmitter division, he took Carl with him. I think Carl was the one who thought up the charges for Neel, what he based his ideas on I would love to know. Carl, remember what one American businessman told us about ethics, “you have to be able to look yourself in the face in the mirror each morning”. I can.

Details of my interaction with Neel Smuts during my career at the SABC can be found in his profile at Neel Smuts Profile.