The Southern African Music Rights Organisation (Samro) is attempting to quash emerging reports of deep-seated fraud and corruption within the non-profit company and silence members’ calls for leadership change.

On Friday, staff went as far as to vacate their offices, hosting an extraordinary general meeting online from an unknown location and going to great lengths to deny members access.

On 10 July, Samro COO Mpho Mofikoe addressed the results of a forensic report to investigate allegations of internal fraud. It was completed by Fundudzi Forensic Services in July 2023 and immediately buried.

‘The fundudzi (forensic report into allegations of irregular payments of undocumented works) was very thorough,’ a visibly upset Mofikoe said.

‘We failed internally as Samro.’

She said ‘I know I’m going to be fired, but… I had to raise a grievance against the board because of interference that is currently taking place by the board’.

The Daily Maverick reports that Samro was once a globally respected institution, established in the 1960s to collect the royalties of southern African composers and publishers of music.

Its sole purpose is to record where its members’ music is broadcast, collect and administer the revenue from those broadcasts and pay them out as royalties to its 150 000 members.

But over the past decade, the organisation has attempted to shrug off one scandal after the next, each involving tens of millions of rands in royalties that have allegedly been misappropriated by its staff and its most prominent members.

These include Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Sheer Music Publishing, Active Music Publishing and VVP.

Several of these entities have permanent seats on the board due to their dominance in the global market.

At the 10 July meeting, which was called by members in part to learn more about the Fundudzi report, three board members fingered in the investigation – Louise Bulley, owner of VVP Publishing, Ryan Hill, MD of Universal Music Publishing and Rowlin Naicker, MD of Sony Music Publishing were subsequently voted out of their seats.

A follow-up meeting was requested to conclude matters after proceedings ran well over time.

Within weeks, Mofikoe had been suspended by Samro CEO Annabel Lebethe, reportedly for naming the implicated board members.

Mofikoe also reportedly refused to hand over files related to the forensic report to Lebethe’s office, after Lebethe and the board stated they planned to issue amnesty to those implicated.

Samro told DM that Mofikoe’s ‘precautionary suspension’ was not retaliatory.

Instead, ‘it was in response to preliminary findings pointing to potential internal transgressions.’

Samro did not clarify what those transgressions were.

Full Daily Maverick report