Image By: Supplied
The original article can be found here.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) financial situation is dire, with the company’s chief financial officer Yolande van Biljon warning that it might have to apply for business rescue to avoid liquidation.
According to a Sunday Times report, Van Biljon sounded the alarm in a memorandum to SABC board chair Khathutshelo Ramukumba, dated 6 June 2023.
She explained that the business rescue application the South African Post Office is mulling over could become a reality for the SABC unless other funding sources are identified and confirmed urgently in the medium to long term.
“In the short term, immediate significant interventions that are in the corporation’s control are required,” wrote Van Biljon.
She wrote to Ramukumba to explain the risks and ask for intervention or guidance.
The SABC is expected to report a loss of at least R1 billion for the year ended 31 March 2023, blaming load-shedding, the current economic downfall, and the migration to digital terrestrial TV for its poor performance.
However, a trend of TV licence non-payment has significantly contributed to its financial woes.
Broadcasting Electronic Media and Allied Workers Union president Hannes du Buisson says the situation wouldn’t be so dire if the SABC could collect 10% of outstanding TV licence fees.
“R44 billion. That is what is outstanding. If 10% of that was collected by the SABC, then they would have covered the R1 billion deficit, and they would have made R3 billion profit,” said Du Buisson during an interview with 702.
He explained that the UK’s BBC has a 98% TV licence collection rate and has courts to deal with defaulters.
For reference, the SABC’s TV licence evasion rate reached 81.7% in 2022, meaning only around 18% of existing licence holders paid their TV licence during the financial year.
Communications minister Mondli Gungubele revealed the figure of R44 billion outstanding for TV licence fees in a Parliamentary reply to EFF MP Sinawo Tambo.
He said R44.2 billion is owed to the SABC in TV licence fees from 9.2 million holders, which works out to approximately R4 804 per defaulter.
Not one non-payment prosecution
Du Buisson said there are laws about this, and paying TV licence fees is still “the right thing to do”.
Although the SABC has handed over a lot of defaulters for collection, he remarked that not one prosecution had been made for the non-payment of TV licence fees.
“There’s quite a lot of people that are getting these SMSes and messages and so on, but no one has been blacklisted, no one has been dragged to court, no one has been sued,” said Du Buisson.
“And, of course, that is one of the major revenue streams for the SABC apart from the advertising revenue.”
In his response to Tambo’s parliamentary questions, Gungubele revealed that at least 5.6 million TV licence accounts — approximately 61% of the 9.2 million accounts — had been handed over to external debt collectors.
However, according to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), licence holders should not be too bothered about possible legal action being taken against them.
If the debt collectors fail to collect the payments, the SABC can then try and take non-payers to court to force the issue.
However, using the courts to try and recoup the debts would be challenging and expensive.
“It is just too small an amount to enter into legal challenges that may even backfire on them,” Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage told MyBroadband.
“Threats of prosecution are merely threats that I believe the public is aware that the SABC and the debt collectors will not be able to carry out.”
Duvenage believes the TV Licence has now run its course and should be scrapped. Outa supports scrapping the current TV licence scheme in favour of a general household media tax.
