NEWS ALERT - The South African public broadcaster that is finally completely without money on Sunday warned that it's on the verge of a total shutdown and that a "communication blackout is imminent" with the SABC that doesn't have money left to pay staffers at the end of June, is no longer able to pay for electricity and owes hundreds of millions to service and content providers ranging from Sentech to SuperSport.
While Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, South Africa's minister of communications, has been jetsetting to Japan last week and after having had months to help the SABC out of its precarious situation, she had failed to solve the massive financial crisis of the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
Bongumusa Makhathini, SABC chairperson, on Sunday warned that the SABC is finally on the verge of collapse with a blackout that could happen any moment.
"I’m not sure how we are going to pay for salaries come end of June," Bongumusa Makhathini says according to a report in The Sunday Times.
"We have also not maintained any of our infrastructure and a communication blackout is imminent".
The SABC that is perilously close to no longer broadcasting hasn't paid for municipal services like electricity at the end of May, choosing to rather pay SABC staff salaries.
The SABC now owes the City of Johannesburg more than R13.5 million. The SABC is meeting with the Coty of Johannesburg again on Wednesday.
The SABC owes the parastatal signal distributor Sentech R317 million and MultiChoice's sports content division SuperSport over R208 million.
Beyond that the SABC also owes millions to other content providers like independent South African production companies.
Nothing has so far come of the SABC's plea for a massive R6.8 billion in another government bailout.
"We never had a blackout before, but if the funding doesn't come soon the possibility of a blackout is imminent," Madoda Mxakwe, SABC CEO said a month ago.
The SABC could either experience a blackout when it's electricity supply is cut off, content is simply no longer being received, or if SABC staffers down tools, go on strike or simply become no-shows when the SABC fails to pay them at the end of the month.
The SABC planned and started a process of mass retrenchment but buckled under political pressure before the general elections and was forced to abandon the process of firing up to 981 permanent staffers and 1 200 freelancers at the bloated public broadcaster.
