Minister slams SABC board on job cuts
The looming retrenchments at the cash-strapped SABC have set communications minister Nomvula Mokonyane and the board of the public broadcaster on a collision course. While the board maintains it has no choice but to lay off hundreds of workers in order to remain sustainable, Mokonyane is strongly opposed to the job cuts.
The looming retrenchments at the cash-strapped SABC have set communications minister Nomvula Mokonyane and the board of the public broadcaster on a collision course.
While the board maintains it has no choice but to lay off hundreds of workers in order to remain sustainable, Mokonyane is strongly opposed to the job cuts. In a scathing statement she hit out at the board for “ignoring the advice and support of the shareholder in this necessary and critical process of turning the SABC around”.
“This is inconsistent with the principles of good corporate governance, mutual interest and public good,” she said.
The SABC, which recorded a net loss of R622m in the financial year ended March, spends more than R3bn a year on the salaries of more than 3,000 employees. In 2017 it reported a net loss of more than R1bn. The new SABC board, chaired by Bongumusa Makhathini, has been on an aggressive drive to turn around the public broadcaster following years of decline under Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
The falling out is set to test the board’s independence. Late in 2017, the high court in Pretoria affirmed the independence of the SABC board, which had long been bedevilled by political interference, precipitating the collapse of previous boards.
In her statement, Mokonyane said retrenchments must be a “last resort and an integral part of a holistic, well-formulated and broadly canvassed turnaround plan aimed at steering the SABC towards future financial sustainability”.
“The SABC is a national asset and as a public broadcaster its wellbeing is not the exclusive domain of the board and its management but that of all stakeholders with an interest in its sustainability and those include the government, labour, civil society and the broader public,” Mokonyane said.
The SABC’s turnaround plan also lacked details on how much the job cuts will save the SABC in the short, medium and long term, she said.
The SABC board has yet to respond to detailed questions on Mokonyane’s statement on Tuesday. However, in an earlier response at the weekend to assertions by ANC secretarygeneral Ace Magashule that the party had decided “not to allow” the job cuts to go ahead, SABC spokesperson Neo Momodu said: “No person, organisation or entity is permitted to interfere with how the SABC board exercises its power in terms of … the Broadcasting Act. Any interference would be in contravention of the law and a recent court judgment to this effect.”
DA MP and communications spokesperson Phumzile Van Damme called on the SABC to make its turnaround strategy public. Reports that up to 800 employees are likely to lose their jobs “is heart-breaking”.
On Mokonyane’s statement, Van Damme said: “The minister seems to conveniently forget that she is, by law, not allowed to interfere in the SABC’s affairs.”
Media Monitoring Africa director William Bird said the minister seemed to be casting aspersions on the SABC board and therefore interfering indirectly. Reducing the head count was a requirement for the Treasury guarantee in 2009, but the SABC had in the “last five years increased staff by 34%”.