Johnathan Paoli
SABC has the right to discuss in private, financial matters relating to the entity’s future, said Communications and Digital Technologies portfolio committee chairperson Boyce Maneli on Wednesday during a meeting to discuss the corporation’s annual report and financial statements.
In supporting the decision Maneli said it was a necessity to protect the SABC’s “commercially sensitive” information from exposure to industrial competition.
ANC MP Lesiba Molala concurred with the decision saying that this was established as acceptable procedure in two closed sessions with the previous board.
“We had about two closed sessions with the SABC’s previous board. And they were raising all these issues. Maybe honourable Mazzone, at that time, was not in our committee,” Molala said.
However, the DA opposed the decision with Shadow minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Natasha Mazzone saying that in the interests of transparency and accountability, the discussions should be held in the open.
Mazzone wrote to the Chairperson of Committees, Cedric Frolick, and Maneli, requesting that the closed portion of the meeting be made public and the public may not be excluded from committee sittings unless it is reasonable and justified to do so in an open and democratic society.
And it remains an important duty of parliamentarians to hold institutions accountable and that the SABC has a notorious history of evading accountability and transparency, Mazzone said.
“South Africans have every right to know the financial plans of their Public Broadcaster, and this veil of secrecy is deeply concerning,” Mazzone said.
According to the entity’s 2022/23 annual report, the SABC made a net loss of R1.13 billion, R949m more than the previous financial year; with the cash reserves consequently decreasing by R709m (60%) as compared to the R300m recorded in the previous year.
The significant under-performance of revenue has been attributed to a variety of internal and external factors including the growth in audience ratings that did not meet expectations, the impact of analogue switch off and load shedding, the inability to successfully monetise sport properties and other content and the increasing TV Licence evasion rate.
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