SABC wants R3bn from government

Speaking in parliament on Wednesday morning, board chair of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Bongumusa Makhathini told the standing committee on public accounts the SABC needed a R3bn government guarantee to avoid its impending collapse.

According to Fin24, this comes after a meeting on Tuesday in which SABC board member and editor Mathatha Tsedu told the portfolio committee on finance that the SABC’s ability to pay full salaries would be in doubt as early as February next year.

Tsedu told parliament on Tuesday that the SABC may be unable to pay salaries in March, unless Treasury can somehow find a way to bail them out again. He said they would probably struggle to pay full salaries in February.

Makhathini told Scopa that 70% of the public broadcaster’s revenue currently goes to paying wages but that the ideal cap would be at 50%.

In addition, he attributed the SABC’s failure to meet its monthly obligations to its R1.3bn debt.

According to Makhathini, the SABC would use the funds from the guarantee to finance the repayment of debt, the procurement of content and maintenance of infrastructure.

ALSO READ: Irregular pay hikes ‘partly to blame for SABC retrenchments’

One of the worrying discussions highlighted on Tuesday was that there were cases of four people who were doing the same job, which could be done quite easily by one person.

Irregular promotions and increases were some of the issues to be looked into as they contributed to the already inflated salary bill of the corporation.

Meanwhile, the broadcaster has been given until next Friday to respond to the Communications Workers Union’s demands or face the consequences.

The protesters handed over a memorandum to group CEO Madoda Mxakwe, giving the broadcaster seven days to reverse the decision to retrench employees.

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