Veteran broadcaster Kgomotso “KG” Moeketsi has taken the next step in her fight against the SABC, launching a R250,000 crowdfunding campaign to fund a High Court challenge over the termination of her SAFM contract.
Moeketsi, who is also the mother of actress and media personality Dineo Langa, has maintained that she was unfairly dismissed and that the process followed by the public broadcaster did not give her the contractual protections she was entitled to. Her BackaBuddy campaign is seeking to raise about R250,000 for the legal battle. At the time of publication, the campaign had raised R4,300.
“I was unfairly dismissed without any due process,” Moeketsi says in her fundraising appeal. “Help me take this public organisation to court.”
Her decision to ask the public for financial support comes days after she broke her silence on what she describes as one of the most painful periods of her nearly three-decade broadcasting career.
Moeketsi’s contract with SAFM was terminated on 15 July following an internal investigation led by the station’s new programme manager, Ferdinand Mabalane. She has strongly disputed the decision and says her concerns went unanswered after she approached SABC executives and board members.
At the centre of her account is a series of events that began in May. Moeketsi said a listener took offence to a response she gave after requesting a song during her programme. She regarded the exchange as minor, but the situation escalated after a major technical failure disrupted her broadcast the following day.
According to Moeketsi, Main Control had to take over programming for almost two hours while engineers attempted to resolve the problem. She said she was concerned that the technical breakdown, which affected listeners, advertisers and the programme itself, appeared to receive less immediate attention than her private exchange with the listener.
She was subsequently suspended and issued with a charge sheet. Moeketsi said she responded within the prescribed deadline but was not given sufficient clarity about additional allegations she says were being investigated.
She later instructed an attorney to seek her reinstatement, arguing that the process was inconsistent with the procedures contained in her contract. Her contract was eventually terminated on 15 July for an alleged breach of contract, a decision she continues to challenge.
The broadcaster has maintained that Moeketsi’s contract was terminated following an internal process. SABC spokesperson Mmoni Ngubane said Moeketsi had the right to appeal but that the organisation would not comment further on the matter.
Moeketsi, however, insists that her fight is not about getting her position back.
“I am not speaking out because I want my job back – I do not!” she said in her statement.
“What I want is accountability and an independent assessment of whether the terms of my contract were honoured and whether the actions taken against me were fair.”
For the broadcaster, who has worked at Radio BOP, Kaya FM, Gagasi FM and SAFM, the dispute represents the sudden disruption of a career built over decades. She joined SAFM in April 2020 and hosted the station’s weekend jazz programme, Seasons.
She said she would have celebrated 30 years in radio in June, making the end of her SAFM chapter particularly painful.
But Moeketsi says the legal battle is bigger than her own career. She believes the case could speak to the vulnerability of freelancers and independent contractors who may not have the money or institutional power to challenge decisions that affect their livelihoods.
“Independent contractors often have limited protections and few practical avenues for recourse. Many simply walk away because they cannot afford to fight. I have decided that I will not,” she said.
She has described the legal action as a difficult decision, acknowledging that taking a public institution to court will be costly and emotionally draining.
“This is a fight I do not undertake lightly,” she said.
As she turns to the public to help finance the case, Moeketsi is positioning the legal challenge not simply as a personal battle over a lost broadcasting job, but as a demand for accountability and due process.
Whether the High Court battle proceeds will now depend, in part, on her fundraising campaign, but the veteran broadcaster has made her position clear: she does not intend to quietly walk away from a career and contract she believes were unfairly brought to an end.
