by Thinus Ferreira
"We are just not winning with South Africans in collecting TV Licences."
This is the stark admission from Nada Wotshela, acting SABC CEO, who briefed parliament's portfolio committee on communications on Wednesday on the public broadcaster's outdated and failed TV Licence system.
Nada Wotshela noted that the SABC has abandoned a proposed SABC TV Licence Amnesty plan, since it was too complex and intricate to put into action.
Instead of replacing the SABC TV Licence regime with a household levy which the country's department of communications has promised to do multiple times over the past two years, the government shocked last week when cabinet approved a bizarre new SABC Bill sent to parliament for debate and that contained no details about it and instead maintains the current TV Licence set-up.
Just 13% - a new record-low - of the 10.8 million TV households on the SABC's database still bother to pay the annual licence fee of R265.
Millions more TV households have TV sets but watch and stream without any licence and whose details and addresses are unknown to the SABC and who are therefore not getting billed.
Then there are people and families who emigrated years ago but continue to get bills delivered at South African addresses they had left years ago, people who no longer have any TV set, as well as thousands of deceased people who have invoices with massive arrears that continue to arrive at dead man's door.
The SABC also sends TV Licence fee bills to indigent people who simply can't afford to pay and people who are jobless, who keep getting billed together with growing arrears and penalties they and will never be able to settle.
While the SABC gets a forced annual influx of new customers who must pay for a SABC TV Licence when they buy a new TV set, the SABC makes less and less money from effectively a "captive audience".
The SABC TV Licence compliance rate keeps falling year after year, while the fee evasion rate keeps increasing. The fee evasion rate is now up to a record 87% of non-payment for the SABC's 2022/23 financial year.
"We've billed in excess of R4.5 billion again like we've done most years, but it's been a theme in recent years, we have struggled to collect," Yolande van Biljon, SABC CFO, told parliament.
"Cash collected was only about R773 million," she said. It's R115 million (13%) less than in 2022.
Although the SABC billed R4.651 billion in 2023 - up from R4.414 billion in 2022 - the SABC collected less money (R775 million) than the R890 million it collected in 2022.
Meanwhile, the SABC also once again spent more to collect the ever smaller amount received in licence fees.
In 2022 the SABC spent R64 million on collecting SABC TV Licence fees through debt collection agencies. In 2023 it increased to R67 million.
Nada Wotshela said "We are just not winning with South Africans in collecting TV Licences. We've tried various interventions. The fact that people have so many other choices in how they access our services - they really don't see why they should continue paying SABC TV Licences."
In her presentation, it was noted that a SABC TV Licence Amnesty plan was abandoned.
"Though feedback was received on the Amnesty application, in reflecting on the legislative framework that would empower such an action, it is believed that such does not exist and as such the programme could not proceed."
