Mokonyane vows to restore the credibility of broken SABC

Communications Minister Nomvula Mokonyane says she is determined to restore the SABC to financial stability, editorial credibility and to being a public broadcaster of integrity.

The SABC has been lurching from crisis to crisis, to the detriment of its editorial and programming credibility. It is experiencing a severe financial crisis as it awaits the outcome of a government guarantee request amounting to R3bn.

“We want to really engage in intense conversation with South Africans on building the SABC to reflect the above objectives,” Mokonyane said as she delivered her budget vote speech in Parliament on Thursday.

“Lessons from other countries have shown that this is an organisation that is at the heart of who we are as a nation, and its issues should not be clouded with others. This is important in view of the inevitable changing broadcasting landscape of ubiquitous channels and over-thetop platforms used by the youth and the negative sentiments around TV licence fees. However, [we] must continue to encourage our people to pay their TV licences in order to guarantee the sustainability of the services provided by the SABC,” the minister said.

She said the broadcaster’s challenges did not augur well for nation-building.

The financially hamstrung public broadcaster notched up a loss of R977m after tax in 2016-17. However, it is projecting a return to profitability in the 2019-20 financial year.

The subdued performance was mainly attributed to declining advertising revenue across all platforms, coupled with deteriorating television licence fee collection. The SABC receives 85% of its revenue from advertising, sponsorships and other commercial partnerships; 3% from the government; and 12% from television licence fees.

Mokonyane said in a recent reply to a question in Parliament that the SABC was owed just over R25bn in unpaid licence fees by April 2017. The broadcaster had written off R4.5bn due to “invalid” accounts in the 2016-17 financial year, she said.

She said less than a third of those with television licences were paying their annual fees.

The SABC had just over 9-million licence holders in April 2017, but only 3-million had paid the fees in full.

The Department of Communications had a total budget of R1.5bn for the 2018/19 financial year. Mokonyane said: “This represents a R36m cut from the previous financial year; 61% of the budget comprises transfers to entities, with the Government Communication and Information Services receiving the biggest allocation to drive communication work, awareness and promotion of government services and programmes.

“Our priorities in the next 10 months will be on four focus areas, namely creating a new vision for the broadcast sector, accelerating the migration from analogue to digital, stabilising our entities and the SABC and improving organisational capacity,” said the minister.

Phumzile van Damme, the DA MP and spokeswoman on communications, said: “The constant reshuffling of ministers means that there is perpetual policy uncertainty and a lack of continuity.

“It is quite clear this department is not one of high priority for ANC presidents — and less of a priority is SA’s broadcasting digital migration programme. Only R77m has been allocated for its roll-out in 2018, whereas R6.6bn is what is needed.

“It is quite clear that another year will roll on by and SA will not migrate to digital television.”