The SABC top brass has blamed its exorbitant cumulative irregular expenditure on Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who took over as COO in 2011.
According to the SABC, whose management and board appeared before the portfolio committee on communications and digital technologies, its incurred irregular expenditure stands at R2.8bn.
“On irregular expenditure, the R2.8bn balance has its origins as long ago as 2011. It was about R2.6bn in 2018. This year irregular expenditure only amounted to R91m coming down from about R600m from five years ago,” SABC finance boss Yolande van Biljon told the committee.
The reason we had a net loss of R201m was largely because of the acquisition of sports rights for the Olympics, which is an obligation from a public mandate point of view
— SABC CEO Madoda Mxakwe
“On the R91m, about 23% were instances this year. Everything else is from activities and contracts from prior years.”
SABC CEO Madoda Mxakwe said the management team he leads has done well to change the financial fortunes of the troubled broadcaster.
This despite the SABC still spending more than the money it generates. According to its financial books, the broadcaster cumulatively makes a revenue of R5bn, while its expenditure is R300m more.
In the financial year under review, the SABC failed to meet its targets, managing a dismal success rate of 53% after meeting 23 of its 53 targets.
But Mxakwe blew his own horn for reducing the net loss over the past years, arguing that this was a sign of an SABC on its way to financial recovery.
“The R201m net loss indicates how year on year we have been able to reduce the net losses of the SABC. Four years ago we stood at R1bn, the following year we moved to R800m, the previous two fiscal years ago we were about R500m and we are now at R201m, which is a progressive reduction and that indicates that we are now moving closer to breaking even and being profitable,” said Mxakwe.
“The reason we had a net loss of R201m was largely because of the acquisition of sports rights for the Olympics, which is an obligation from a public mandate point of view.
“If we were to remove the Olympic television rights, it is about R122m which is about 58% of the total net-loss, so the focus is not just on reducing the losses but increasing the revenue.”
According to him, revenue injection into the company has been bolstered by R90m “year on year.
“Are we where we should be? Certainly not. Are we where we were four years ago? Definitely not,” he boasted
For its failure to meet its targets, the SABC blamed “lack of local content in key slots, poor marketing and capacity constraints”, among other things.
But the Auckland Park-based SOE had also evaluated a mere 1.5% of performance contracts, while 90% of its employees have entered into performance contracts. The excuse on this front was that this was caused by “transition of performance contracting from a manual to automated process”.
The committee also heard how the SABC failed to collect TV licence fees worth over R3.6bn, collecting only R815m of the R4.4bn it billed all TV set owners.
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