Payola, bribery probe at SABC

SIYABONGA SITHOLE

IT HAS been over a year since the Hawks began its investigation into allegations of bribery and payola payments at SABC radio stations.

This week news that the Hawks had made arrests were not confirmed or denied by the crime busting organisation as they said they will revert to this newspaper with the information of reported imminent arrests at the public broadcaster.

Allegations of payola at the SABC are not new with some of the big names in the music industry having openly slammed the SABC music compilers of accepting bribes with some of the country’s leading radio hosts such as Vukani “DJ Chilli M” Masinga having confessed to taking money from artists in order to facilitate airplay.

Masinga was subsequently fired.

In 2017, the public broadcaster reported that it had placed at least 13 of its music compilers under disciplinary processes following a report that fingered them in acts of payola and bribery across its radio stations and other entities.

Speaking to The Star, Eugene Mthethwa and Vusi Leeuw, who are activist in the industry, said they were not aware of arrests but knew that the Hawks had been looking into the matter since last year.

Both said they knew that music icon, William “Mr Music” Mthethwa recently confessed to having agreed to part with 33% of his royalties in exchange of radio airplay on stations such as Lesedi FM with some of the station’s on air personalities receiving this portion of the royalties in exchange for airplay.

This, they said, happened in the 90s with Mthethwa only admitting to his illegal activities at a recent meeting at the SA Music Rights Organisation (Samro) offices.

“William Mthethwa is the only one that I know who confessed to giving bribes to radio stations for airplay. He needs to be held accountable for his actions and not only blame radio stations and their DJs for bribery just because he is struggling at the moment. You can only guess how much and for how long did he benefit from radio airplay at the expense of other artists who had to be blacked or lose out airplay due to his actions,” Leeuw said.

“I am yet to hear of any arrests. But what I can tell you is that these are long overdue and I would be happy if the Hawks arrest those people,” Mthethwa said.

Mzwakhe Mbuli, another veteran activist in the industry, said the SABC and Samro should be called to account as they participated in bribery since the 80s which resulted in Mthethwa ceding his royalties to DJs from the station who in turn should be brought to book as they manipulated the copyright system when they took ownership of musical works of artists such as Mthethwa and Pure Gold whose credits were interfered with to allow radio DJs to be registered under false names in order to get royalties.

“William Mthethwa is a victim in all of this. He admitted to paying payola but we did not take it seriously until last year and Samro also admitted and showed us (a) statement where the names of artists were removed allowing DJs such as Chomane Chomane and Thuso Motaung to earn royalties on songs they did not create.

“Chomane made an admission of guilt so the Hawks need to do their job,” Mbuli said.

He said after speaking to the Hawks investigating officer, he was promised that there will be imminent arrests as the case was solid enough to prosecute.

Attempts to get comment from the SABC proved unfruitful as they had not returned our enquiries sent earlier on.

Mthethwa said he would give his comment later on as he was busy, adding that he was yet to hear about the progress of the case from the Hawks.