No option but to retrench – SABC
CEO: WITH ‘DAY ZERO’ APPROACHING, IT’S INEVITABLE
Board chair tells Scopa that to save the broadcaster, a state guarantee is a must.
Banks were reluctant to help the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) with a loan without a government guarantee, the stateowned entity’s board chairperson Bongumusa Makhathini told MPs yesterday.
Briefing parliament’s standing committee on public accounts on the irregular expenditure of R4.9 billion over a period of several years, the board said it was putting in place measures to stop this, recover some of the money, and ensure people are held accountable for their actions, specifically in supply chain management.
The SABC continues to bleed money, despite slight revenue increases due to a weak balance sheet, prompting it to start the process to retrench about 981 employees – a process currently before the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).
Makhathini said without a R3 billion injection, they would approach “day zero” where the broadcaster would be “factually insolvent” by March 2019.
“All we need is a government guarantee...,” he said. “Come March, we will maybe collect roughly R300 million. We need R600 million a month.”
SABC chief financial officer Yolande van Biljon said they were battling to meet their financial obligations and had to cut costs in key areas like buying content, which was key to improving audience figures. “We typically start with [paying] salaries, then rent, water and electricity, then we have arrangements with bigger service providers where we enter with payment agreements ... then we started to curtail our content,” she said, adding that where the broadcaster generally pays R140 million a month for content, it spent less than half of that in November. Chief executive Madoda Mxakwe defended the company’s intention to retrench, saying it had no other alternative. “Currently we have a very bloated structure, particularly at middle and senior management.” Mxakwe added that the SABC had 479 managers, which cost the broadcaster R630 million a year, while freelancers cost it R510 million a year.
479 managers cost broadcaster R630m a year