It is heartbreaking to watch how another crucial public entity is dying so fast, right in front of our eyes. My recent visits to the SABC’s offices and studios left me devastated and shocked. The infrastructure, mainly studios and other equipment, has all but collapsed. Newsrooms are surprisingly understaffed and morale is at rock bottom.
What’s worse, there are also reports that the state-owned entity is again looking at the possibility of retrenchments. Four years ago it retrenched and offered early retirements to more than 800 employees (I was one of them). It was no fault of the then administration, much as the current crisis is no fault of the present administration.
At the heart of the saga is the corporation’s funding model. At least for the past 31 years, from the time of Zwelakhe Sisulu (minus Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s wasted years), up until Madoda Mxakwe, all CEOs have consistently pleaded with politicians to change the funding model, for all the obvious reasons.
It is outdated and no longer fit for the SABC’s purpose. In its current form, and due to the speed with which it is deteriorating, the SABC will collapse in the next five years. The signs are all over the place. It is safe to say it will not celebrate its 80th birthday. Either something drastic is done urgently, or we kiss goodbye our public broadcaster as we knew it.
What is distressing is that the SABC’s collapse is after the same modus operandi of the Post Office. Again, all signs were there at the Post Office, and several rescue plans were presented. But politicians preferred to bury their heads in the sand and deliberately allow thousands of workers (probably millions if I add their dependents) to lose their jobs and livelihoods.
Many of those who were responsible have since been promoted to other positions, where they are still messing up, while a few others died while enjoying their cushy benefits.
This is a deliberately man-made, or should we rather say politician-made, crisis. Many years ago I asked one of the ministers responsible for the SABC a simple question: “What’s so difficult about changing this funding model of the SABC. Would you rather let it collapse or … do you still love some of these apartheid legacies, even though they’re obviously outdated?”
The minister looked at me with a rare smile and said: “Is there any political party that can allow the SABC to be run independently … even the BBC has never, and it will never, enjoy such status.”
I honestly thought the minister was joking. Thirty years later, the joke is on me.
Manelisi Dubase
Gugulethu
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