In a shocking, stunning and absolutely jaw-dropping revelation, the National Treasury that forms part of the task team looking after the beleaguered SABC, told parliament's portfolio committee that the South African public broadcaster wants an incredulous amount of almost R7 BILLION over the next 3 years.
The shocking R6,9 BILLION that the struggling SABC wants (R384,33 million in the 2011/12 financial year, R2,026 billion in the 2012/13 year, and R4,52 billion in the 2013/14 financial year) comes as the National Treasury and task team told parliament today that the public broadcaster is failing to adhere or meet all of the targets for its government guaranteed loan.
The government gave the SABC a lifeline at the end of 2009 in the form of a government guaranteed loan of R1,4 billion. So far the SABC has used R1 billion of that loan from Nedbank.
While the SABC failed to keep to all of the stipulations as set out to get access to the government guaranteed loan, the public broadcaster has now applied to the National Treasury for R6,9 billion in government funding.
The National Treasury chief director Avril Halstead told the committee that if the broadcaster doesn't get this money, that the SABC will sink away in a shortfall of literally billions of rands to the tune of R3,7 billion over 3 years.
''We are quite worried about the SABC's longer term financial sustainability as it's almost entirely dependent on receiving additional funding from government,'' Avril Halstead said.
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ALSO READ: At the SABC ''short term cost cutting is happening on content, posing a long term risk for the SABC.'' - National Treasury.
ALSO READ: The Writers' Guild of South Africa ''appalled'' and ''desperately sad'' over SABC's cutbacks on local TV content.
ALSO READ: ''The SABC needs to get their house in order before they get further public funds,'' says the Support Public Broadcasting Coalition (SOS) group.
ALSO READ: ''Inconsistencies'' in the way the SABC is communicating, for instance on the SABC's planned new 24 hour news channel News24 - National Treasury.
ALSO READ: ''We haven't seen business plans from the SABC on the News24 news channel, the sports channel, or even DTT.'' - National Treasury.
ALSO READ: Furious, stunned and outraged members of parliament blast the SABC for the broadcaster's sad state of affairs - MUST READ quotes.
ALSO READ: SABC still plagued by schedule instability; turnaround of SABC3 remains 'difficult', says department of communications.
ALSO READ: Government KNEW that the SABC won't make its targets. The Sizwe Ntsabula Report concluded that ''it doesn't appear that the SABC would be able to meet the targets set out''.
ALSO READ: The Monitoring Task Team (MTT) report on the SABC clearly shows and indicates the SABC's funding request from government for R6,9 billion.
