Mungo Soggot
THE Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) warned this week the government h ad “no option” but to give the SABC the money it needed to survive.
Councillor Lyndal Shope-Malofe said the IBA, which was charged with ensuring t he viability of the public broacaster, had urged Post, Telecommunications and Broadcasting Minister Jay Naidoo several times this year to sort out funding f or the SABC. Shope-Malofe said on seeing weekend reports about the SABC’s fina ncial crisis she had wondered whether the IBA could have done more to persuade the gover
nment to throw it a lifeline earlier.
However, she realised both Naidoo and the parliamentary committee had had an a ction-packed year. She also acknowledged the government had many funding prior ities.
But, she said, there was no option but to bail the SABC out. “Parliament has d ecided it needs a public broadcaster. It [the SABC] will not be left to die, o r even to limp.”
An internal report leaked at the weekend warned that unless the government gav e the SABC R240-million by March next year and R600-million by March 1998 it w ould have to dramatically scale down its coverage.
However, the SABC this week denied it was bankrupt.