Nomvula Mokonyane, South Africa's current minister of communications, on Monday slammed the cash-strapped and struggling SABC top executive for its turn-around plan and the SABC's top brass plan to fire hundreds of staffers, saying she and the ministry of communications are opposed to the SABC's retrenchment plan that includes shutting down provincial offices and reducing provincial SABC staffers.
Nomvula Mokonyane, South Africa's 10th minister of communications in 10 years, said she is strongly opposed to possible retrenchment of SABC staffers, and that she had "expressed her dissatisfaction with the preferred methods of implementation of the turn-around plan submitted by the SABC board for to the minister for concurrence".
"While the minister appreciates the precarious financial position of the public broadcaster and the urgent need to contain costs, the minister has lamented the fact that despite numerous meetings with the SABC board on the need for a comprehensive approach to turnaround of the public broadcaster, the board has insisted on retrenchment as the foremost and only solution".
Nomvula Mokonyane's statement on Monday echoed a chorus of criticism directed as the SABC board and the broadcaster's top management, with the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) that also weighed in earlier during the day and likewise slammed the SABC's "cruelty", saying SABC staffers are "once again,at the receiving end of leadership abuse and negligence" at the broadcaster.
Madoda Mxakwe, SABC CEO has warned staffers about the South African public broadcaster's "dire financial state" after the SABC started the process of job cuts and retrenchments to downsize the SABC's staff numbers.
A week after the SABC chairperson Bongumusa Makhathini played coy, didn't want to talk about SABC staff firings and wasn't willing to be upfront about the SABC that has been looking at drastically shedding another 800 jobs, Madoda Mxakwe finally told SABC staffers following a meeting on Thursday with trade unions, that the SABC's wage bill is unsustainable.
The SABC posted a loss of R622 million for the 2017/2018 financial year with the country's Auditor-General (AG), Kimi Makwetu, saying he can't determine whether the cash-strapped South African public broadcaster remains a going concern.
Longtime staffers and producers who have been with SABC News since the channel's start-up five years ago already got axed at the end of August although despite the SABC renewed its controversial multi-million rand channel carriage carriage with Naspers' MultiChoice to continue carrying the news channel on DStv for the next few years.
Around 3 000 of the SABC's staff headcount are permanent employees, while the rest are fixed-term and freelance workers.
A staggering amount of the SABC's expenditure goes to just paying staffers, although just 60% are directly involved in programming. The SABC is supposed to spend the bulk of its money on creating and broadcasting content.
The SABC says one of the SABC's biggest cost drivers is the salary bill and that although it is a R7.2 billion revenue generating company, it's saddled with a massive annual salary bill of R3.1 billion.
On Monday Nomvula Mokonyane said "any retrenchment exercise must be a last resort and an integral part of a holistic, well-formulated and broadly canvassed turn-around plan aimed at steering the SABC towards future financial sustainability".
Nomvula Mokonyane says she has raised concerns about the "odd approach by the SABC board which ignores the advice and support" of the department of communications and that is "inconsistent with the principles of good corporate governance, mutual interest and public good".
"Throughout her numerous engagement with the SABC, Nomvula Mokonyane had insisted on the process being objective and open to technical support by the shareholder and the National Treasury, hence she established a turn-around task-team comprising the department of communications and National Treasury to work with the SABC in this regard."
Nomvula Mokonyane slammed the SABC's turn-around plan on Monday saying that it lacks "details regarding how much the said retrenchments will save the company both in the short-, medium- and long-term".
"The proposal to close certain offices and reducing staff does not demonstrate the service delivery impact analysis of the said restructuring and scaling down of employees per division, province and occupational category".
According to Nomvula Mokonyane the SABC's turn-around plan is "silent on revenue enhancement initiatives, including an improvement plan for the collection of TV licences and the possible disposal of non-core and under-utilised immovable assets and properties, which is crucial for the financial sustainability of the SABC."
"The SABC is a national asset and as a public broadcaster its well-being is not the exclusive domain of the board and its management but that of all stakeholders with an interest in its sustainability."
