Outa urges portfolio committee to send SABC Bill back to department

Civil action organisation Outa has urged the portfolio committee on communications and digital technologies to send the SABC Bill back to the department of communications and digital technologies because it fails to address critical issues of financial sustainability and raises red flags of government interference in the commercial and operational aspects of the public broadcaster.

Outa believes that it is of utmost importance to ensure that the SABC has strong legislation and policies that govern it to enable the entity to restore public trust and guarantee editorial independence.

The SABC has for years been plagued by financial instability and management issues and Outa believes this has contributed to the erosion of trust in the public broadcaster.

“There is no doubt about the SABC’s value as a public broadcaster and Outa believes this role needs support. In particular, the SABC’s funding is one of the most critical areas of the SABC’s model that has failed and something the new SABC Bill unsuccessfully tries to address, Outa says in a submission to the department on the SABC Bill, which has been out for public comment.

“Outa believes that the bill has effectively kicked the funding can down the road by not laying out any specific changes or proposals,” Andrea van Heerden, senior legal project manager at Outa, says.

In addition, Outa is concerned that the three-year delay in developing a funding model, as proposed in the bill, could put the SABC in an even more difficult financial position, as its finances are already on shaky ground with the SABC recording a R1.1 billion net loss for the 2023 financial year.

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Concern that SABC Bill does not give interim financial certainty

Van Heerden says Outa thinks that a long-term solution is of utmost importance and while it is pleasing to see government consider an alternative funding model, the organisation is worried about how long it will take to identify and implement such an alternative, as the SABC needs financial certainty for the interim period, which the bill does not provide.

“Instead of the bill dealing with the SABC’s financial crisis, TV licences remain and deliberations on a new funding model are kicked down the road for three years. In addition, the minister of communications and digital technologies, in consultation with the minister of finance, is the only one tasked with identifying a new funding model.”

In its submission Outa again urges the committee to consider a regular annual state grant for the SABC’s public broadcasting services, instead of flogging the dead TV licence fee collection model, as this would avoid the irregular and disastrous last-minute bailouts and provide a more stable revenue stream, particularly for the public broadcasting sector.

“This regular annual state grant could be seen as a grant to further democracy. Outa suggests cutting funding for wasteful programmes and diverting some of this to the SABC. For example, the national and provincial legislatures could provide some funding to further democracy, as these institutions manage to provide hundreds of millions of rand to political parties to support democracy.”

Outa believes that some of these funds could be more usefully diverted to the SABC, Van Heerden says.