SAMRO board member stands firm on CEO dismissal, calls on organisation to release meeting minutes.

SAMRO's leadership went to its members this weekend and called our story false. The Interim Chairperson, Sisa Mayekiso, wrote a letter. He said the CEO, Annabelle Lebethe had not been dismissed. He said our reporting was factually incorrect and completely unfounded. He said SAMRO had even responded to us before publication, implying we ignored their denial.

We did not ignore it. We published it.

And when we went back to the board member who told us he fired Annabelle Lebethe and showed him that letter he did not back down. He told us to look at the minutes.

Here is the full picture.

What SAMRO told us before we published

Before we published our original story on 6 March 2026, The Public Dispatch sent a detailed list of questions to SAMRO's media team. We asked them directly: has Annabelle Lebethe been removed as CEO? If so, when and why? Did she make any admissions at the 4 February board meeting regarding the misuse of SAMRO funds?

We gave them a deadline of 6:00pm that day to respond.

SAMRO responded. This is what they said, in full:

"There is no basis for these claims or allegations as Ms Lebethe remains the CEO of SAMRO. Any information suggesting otherwise is unfounded and inaccurate."

We published that denial in our original article. We included it so that our readers could weigh SAMRO's official position against the account of a named, on-the-record board member. That is standard practice in accountability journalism. We did not hide their response. We put it in the story.

Mayekiso's letter to members creates the impression that we ignored SAMRO's response. That is not accurate. Their denial was part of our original report.

The Chairperson's letter and what it does not say

On the weekend following publication, SAMRO Interim Chairperson Sisa Mayekiso wrote to members. His letter said the following:

"The media report is factually incorrect and completely unfounded. Ms Lebethe remains the Chief Executive Officer of SAMRO, and there has been no decision or process whatsoever resulting in her removal."

He said SAMRO was taking steps to address the matter through media ethics and regulatory bodies.

We take that seriously. We welcome scrutiny of our journalism. Every newsroom should.

But read Mayekiso's letter carefully:

It says Lebethe remains CEO. It says no decision resulted in her removal. What it does not say is this: it does not say the 4 February board meeting did not happen. It does not say board member Dan Nkosi did not raise a motion. It does not explain how a sitting board member came to tell a journalist on the record, with his full name attached that he moved for the CEO's dismissal and the motion was carried.

A denial is not a refutation. It is a counter-claim. And counter-claims require evidence.

We put Mayekiso's letter to Nkosi and he said: "They must show the minutes".

After Mayekiso's letter became public, The Public Dispatch contacted Nkosi, the SAMRO board member who told us he raised the motion to dismiss Lebethe on 4 February 2026.

We asked him directly: does he stand by his account?

More than that, Nkosi issued a direct challenge to SAMRO's leadership: if the dismissal did not happen, let them produce the minutes of the 4 February board meeting and show the public what is in them.

That challenge matters. Board meetings produce official minutes. Those minutes are a formal record of what was discussed, what motions were raised, what votes were taken, and what decisions were made. If no motion to dismiss Lebethe was raised on 4 February, the minutes will show that. If a motion was raised and carried, the minutes will show that too.

Nkosi knows what he did in that room. And he is confident enough in his account to call for the documentary proof to be made public.

The ball is now in SAMRO's court. Produce the minutes. Let the record speak.

Two accounts. One set of minutes. One Truth.

This is where the story now stands:

On one side: SAMRO's Interim Chairperson, writing to members, saying the dismissal never happened and the story is false

On the other side:

a sitting SAMRO board member, named, on the record, maintaining that he personally raised a motion to dismiss the CEO that the motion was carried and that he is willing to have the official meeting record tested against his account

Both of these things cannot be true at the same time.

Either Nkosi raised a motion and it was carried, or he did not. Either Lebethe admitted to the misuse of company funds in that meeting, or she did not. Either the 4 February board meeting produced a decision to remove her, or it did not.

The minutes will answer all of these questions. So why has SAMRO not simply released them?

We are now formally requesting the minutes

We will be filing a formal request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) for the official minutes of the SAMRO board meeting held on 4 February 2026.

Your paragraph here

SAMRO is a collective management organisation operating under South Africa's Copyright Act. It exists to serve its members, the composers, lyricists, and music publishers whose royalties it collects and distributes. Its governance records are not the private property of its board. Its members have a legitimate interest in knowing what decisions are made on their behalf, and by whom.

If those minutes confirm SAMRO's account that no motion was raised, that no dismissal occurred then The Public Dispatch will report that fully and transparently.

If those minutes tell a different story, the public deserves to know.

We will report on the outcome of our PAIA request as it develops.

The broader questions has not gone away.

While the dispute over the dismissal dominates the current news cycle, it is worth remembering what sits underneath all of this.

The Fundudzi Forensic Report, commissioned by SAMRO's own board in July 2023 — documented fraud, conflicts of interest, and serious financial mismanagement inside the organisation. That report has never been made public. Its findings have never been fully accounted for.

A theft case was opened in October 2025 against Lebethe and CFO Leanne Thomas over the alleged misuse of SAMRO funds for a book launch sponsorship. That case is still active.

Protests have erupted outside SAMRO's Braamfontein offices. Members are angry. Artists United has publicly stated the situation was long overdue for resolution.

Whether or not the verbal dismissal of 4 February holds up legally, none of these underlying issues have been resolved. SAMRO has not addressed them publicly. Its leadership has chosen instead to focus its energy on disputing a media report.

That tells its own story.

A note on our reporting.

We stand by every word of our original story. It was based on two named, on-the-record sources. It included SAMRO's denial. It was published in good faith on the basis of credible, firsthand information provided by a sitting board member.

We are not in the business of retracting stories because the subjects of those stories deny them. We are in the business of following the evidence. Right now, the evidence points to a set of meeting minutes that SAMRO has the power to release and has chosen not to.

We will keep reporting until we get the full picture. Anyone with information, including access to the minutes, the Fundudzi Report, or details of the theft case is encouraged to contact our newsroom in confidence.