by Thinus Ferreira
The SABC is silent after its chief
financial officer revealed that the struggling South African public broadcaster
is hampered by absent leadership with "no sense of urgency in the
executive team", is running "on autopilot" and is once-again
barrelling towards "day zero" where it won't be able to pay salaries
and might be placed in business rescue.
The SABC is set to announce a loss of
over R1 billion.
Rank-and-file SABC staffers as well as
production companies doing business with the broadcaster are once again
suddenly on edge as Auckland Park corridors have been plunged into a next, new
chapter of massive uncertainty about what the future holds, wondering whether
salaries will remain paid and if a new round of retrenchments or yet another
turnaround plan might be on the cards.
After a R3.2 billion government bailout
in 2019 in the form of a loan guarantee, the beleaguered SABC – which had to
function without a SABC board for over half a year until a new once was
appointed in April – is once again struggling to pay bills, with warning lights
flickering over its ongoing ability to pay staff in the coming months.
After mounting losses the past decade,
the SABC is once again set to record a massive financial loss of over R1
billion for its 2022/2023 financial year that has mushroomed from an estimated
R608 million loss that was projected just a few months ago in December 2022 and
has since almost doubled.
The former SABC CEO Madoda Mxakwe has
been replaced after his five-year term from July by the SABC’s head of radio
Nada Wotshela, as acting SABC CEO, after the broadcaster failed to start the
process in time to find and appoint a new CEO.
Adv Ntuthuzelo Vanara, the SABC's head
of legal has resigned and will exit at the end of July, while Reggie Nxumalo
also resigned as the SABC's head of sales.
SABC3 is also again sitting without
any channel head. Yolanda van Biljon, the SABC's chief financial officer (CFO)
whose five-year term also expired, has had her contract extended for another
six months.
By May the SABC has not paid Sentech,
the parastatal signal distributer carrying the SABC's various TV and radio
signals, its monthly instalment for a year, with the minister of
communications and digital technologies who revealed that the SABC is owed over
R44.2 billion in outstanding SABC TV Licence payments it will likely never be
able to recoup.
On Sunday the Sunday Times newspaper
reported that Van Biljon, in a memo on 6 June to the new SABC board chairperson
Khathutshelo Ramukumba, warned that the country's public broadcaster is once
again teetering on the brink of financial collapse and might end up being
placed in business rescue similar to the South African Post Office (SAPO)
following its financial implosion.
She said that similar to the Post
Office which has now been placed under business rescue, it's "going to
become a very real consideration unless other sources of funding or support are
identified and confirmed as a matter of urgency in the medium to longer
term".
According to her, the SABC will once
again find itself unable to pay bills and suppliers in the coming months
without urgent intervention – back to a situation the SABC found itself in just
three years ago and several times in the past 20 years.
Van Biljon told the SABC board that
"Leadership is absent currently and there is no cohesion or sense of
urgency in the executive team. The corporation is on autopilot."
Mmoni Seapolelo, acting group executive
for corporate affairs, told TVwithThinus in response to a media query seeking comment
about Van Biljon's memo and the various warnings raised, to "Kindly note
that the SABC is not commenting on this matter".
Hannes du Buisson, president of the
Bemawu trade union, told SABC News that the broadcaster's staff has been kept
in the dark and haven't received any communication from management about the
SABC's dire financial situation or the possibility that it might be placed
under business rescue.
In the latter part of 2020 the SABC
started a retrenchment process with 877 permanent staffers who eventually lost
their jobs by 2021, with the SABC’s wage
bill that is by far the biggest single expense at the crumbling broadcaster.
