SABC staff will be paid in March, says CEO Mxakwe

Staff at the embattled broadcaster will get paid at the end of March, SABC group CEO Madoda Mxakwe has assured. He told SABC News that he was working with the department of communications to ensure the broadcaster would be re-capitalised

On Tuesday, parliament’s Communications Committee heard how salaries could not be guaranteed as the broadcaster was headed for factual insolvency by the end of March and would have a net financial loss of R568 million for the financial year.

The loss was R281 million more than anticipated, Mxakwe added. He said the company was suffering from a financial crisis which saw content providers refusing to interact with the SABC because they were not paid. Some of the challenges were that the company was also not able to purchase rights to air sporting events.

“Owing to our current liquidity crisis, there is a whole lot of issues that we had to do from a financial point of view and I think what is helping now is that we have been working very closely with the department of communications to ensure that we re-capitalise the SABC. So that will help a great deal.”

Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams told the committee that Treasury would hold their end to ensure they provided interim funding to the broadcaster.

The SABC has also found itself unable to perform routine maintenance on its buildings and this was posing health and safety concerns.

(Compiled by Gopolang Chawane, additional reporting by ANA)

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