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Former SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng has responded to a civil claim lodged by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to recover R21m from him by telling the public broadcaster it owes him R16m, according to the Sunday Times.
He says the money is owed to him for brokering a controversial content deal with pay-TV giant MultiChoice.
Last week, head of the SIU, advocate Andy Mothibi, updated the National Assembly's oversight committee on communications, according to TimesLive.
He told the committee that the first recovery claim against Motsoeneng is for the R11m the SABC paid irregularly as a success fee for the controversial contracts entered into with MultiChoice.
Another recovery of R10m stems from irregular appointments, salary hikes, suspensions and unlawful terminations of contracts while Motsoeneng was COO.
Counter-claim
According to the Sunday Times, Motsoeneng argues in his counter-claim which has been filed in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg that his deal netted the public broadcaster a R1.19bn profit and he is entitled to compensation for raising money for the SABC.
He contends that the decision of the board to approve the payment of his success fee, calculated at 2.5% of the R1.19bn less R1m, is valid and binding on the SABC.
He remains steadfast that the R11.5m already paid to him in the form of a bonus was only a part payment of the total owed to him.
eNCA reported that Mothibi told the committee that the SIU had evidence that Motsoeneng was giving himself bonuses for doing his job.
"These success fees, our evidence reveals that this would've been the fees paid based on some of the official work that Mr Motsoeneng would have done in, call it negotiating or arranging contracts with MultiChoice. In our view, those success fees have been paid irregularly to Mr Motsoeneng," Mothibi said.
Motsoeneng told the Sunday Times that he would not comment while the matter was in court.
- compiled by Vanessa Banton
