Scopa set to probe SABC corruption

THE Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) wants to get to the bottom of corruption at the SABC.

This is the point they want to drive home when they meet with the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) and the SABC interim board today.

Scopa chairman Themba Godi said yesterday that they wanted all the issues relating to investigations to be conducted comprehensively.

“(Today’s) meeting is to agree on the scope that by the time the proclamation is issued (by President Jacob Zuma), we are all on the same wavelength,” he said.

The SABC has been haemorrhaging in the last few years, with the losses for the 2016/17 financial year expected to rise to R1.1 billion.

The SABC has lost on successive quarters in the last financial year, recording a major loss of R509 million in the fourth quarter.

This followed a combined loss of more than R430m in the first and second quarters.

Last year, the SABC lost R411m and it lost R395m in 2015. The year before that it lost more than R500m.

The last time it received a bailout was in 2010 when then-finance minister Pravin Gordhan agreed to the R1.4bn loan guarantee.

It was able to raise the money from the banks and repaid it in two years, and said at the time it was recovering.

But Godi said yesterday that they wanted the SIU to get to the bottom of corruption at the public broadcaster.

They wanted to ensure the meeting they had with the SIU and SABC interim board would produce the desired result, that all the key investigations were in the hands of the SIU.

Godi said they would also ask the SIU about the previous investigations it had conducted at the SABC.

Scopa told the interim board in Parliament a few weeks ago it wanted clean governance at the public broadcaster.