Okay! I am at that point where I don’t care about this man’s shenanigans anymore – he won, he defeated the integrity of hard working (and qualified) folk all around him and believe me, I am totally over it.

Things went haywire last week following the announcement that Motsoeneng had been appointed the permanent COO (chief operating officer) of the SABC, despite the the National Prosecutor Thuli Madonsela’s recent findings that his erstwhile temporary appointment to the position had been in bad faith after Motsoeneng lied about his Matric results.

Yeah. So the board of the SABC and the Department of Communications (and its commander in chief  perhaps?) have disregarded the public protector’s findings and permanently appointed a man to a position that he doesn’t have the right qualifications to hold – in a public institution as important as the SABC. What kind of message is the SABC and the ANC-led government sending to young people? Are they encouraging youngsters to lie about their skills and qualifications in order to get ahead in this country? Someone tell me something…because I am so confused and annoyed.

Many people in the country, like myself, just find this entire scenario weird. According to party leader Helen Zille, the Democratic Alliance (DA) is lodging a case in the high court regarding the matter. “The process of serving papers on Communications Minister Faith Muthambi and the SABC board has begun, with the application to be made in the Gauteng High Court,” declared Zille in Cape Town on Monday.

Rightly so; the DA and other quarters of society have every right to raise concerns about this “irregular” appointment. Motsoeneng currently earns R2.4 million. A figure I consider to be way over-inflated, all things considered. He and his cronies extravagantly tap into our TV licence payments to reward themselves for a “job well done” despite the obvious need to improve the current poor content being run on our local tellies?

Surely; when a person is appointed to such high level position, there must have been other candidates who were interviewed? No. There apparently was no such process.

This issue has to be taken seriously. It has to go to parliament to be debated, we demand answers now. And most importantly, we want to know who is responsible for this nonsense (which a lot of us already know but we need to hear it from the horse’s mouth, you know?).

Hey…look, I am not saying I am totally against people who don’t have qualifications having nice and awesome jobs, but they should have these jobs only if they deserve them. There are many cases of people having very high level jobs with no qualifications to match their occupation, but the key factor in such cases is that many of these people were truthful about their credentials from the start and rightfully listed their hard work and experience as their greatest assets where the performance of their tasks is concerned.

At the end of the day, I think Motsoeneng should have not lied about his qualification (or lack thereof). He should have been truthful from the word “go”. There have been and will always be people who have been great at what they do without a formal tertiary or high-school qualification. Consider some of the peeps below:

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin Records

Albert Einnstein, Physicist

Ralph Lauren, fashion designer

Despite the wealth and influence of the above people, it is important to point out that school is always important. It prepares one for the challenge of facing the world with the ability to think critically and cultivates the leadership skills in you to be able to benefit the people all around you for a long time. So stay in school.

Words: Tshepo Mosokotso (@sponono_fierce)

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