The South African Broadcasting Corporation SABC says it needs about R7.5 billion to fund costs related to its unfunded public mandate.
The organisation was updating Standing Committee on Public Accounts SCOPA on its audit outcomes and financial performance. The management of the SABC and the board has confirmed incurring loss of R700 million for the financial year 2023/2024.
The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies was also part of the meeting. For the 2023/2024 financial year, the SABC received an unqualified audit opinion after receiving disclaimers since 2009.
SABC CEO Nomsa Chabeli says the costs of funding the programmes related to the public mandate costs billions.
R7.3 billion over the MTF period of public mandate costs are unfunded, meaning that, that money has to come from our commercial activities which makes it very very difficult. So, we are self-funding at the moment and what this does really, it impacted our ability to reinvest in ourselves. As you know, private sector organisations have investors that actually invests in their growth. Therefore, they are able to invest ahead of time. That is not the case with the SABC. So, what has happened because we are literally taking from OPEX to fund CAPEX expenditure.
