Broadcaster to cut jobs in a bid to reduce costs
Job cuts are looming at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) as the new board and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Solly Mokoetle strive to slash costs and reduce the bloated head count of nearly 4 000 employees.

Details of the staff cutbacks are yet to be finalised, possible reduction of wage bill, a requirement of the R1.47billion state guarantee as well as being a recommendation of the report handed to the new board by the interim board at the end of its term office.

The public broadcaster’s wage bill soared to 15.3 percent in the 2008-09 financial year, mainly because of an increase in the head count. The recommendation required SABC to submit a corporate plan to the Treasury by the end of March, 2010. SABC deputy chairwoman Felleng Sekha added that SABC is also appealing to the Department of Communications and Parliaments communications committee to help it get the auditor general to undertake a comprehensive forensic audit to clean up the mess in the organisation because it cannot pay for such an audit itself, a forensic audit is necessary to determine the malfeasance within the organisation.

SABC chairman Ben Ngubani told the parliament committee that the broadcaster’s board and executive management is busy with implementations of a turnover strategy to deal with the financial crisis riding the public broadcaster. The strategy will aim to clean up corporate governance lapses, stabilise the organisation and begin a process of achieving financial sustainability in 2011.  A drive was under way to recognise the sales and marketing unit as well as license fee collection to increase revenue as fast as possible and to devise strategies to retain the broadcaster’s audiences.

Meanwhile, Amrit Manga head of television news has suspended Mahendra Raghunath a news reader who is accused of leaking information about the growing discontent of newsreaders. Reports suggested the decision was not made based on facts and that possible suspensions can be expected. //End//

 
Reagan Malumo
Programme Officer: Media Freedom Monitoring and Research
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Regional Secretariat
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