The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Crisis Coalition on Wednesday threatened a consumer-driven ”blackout” if it was not paid all the money it was owed.
”Of extreme importance to the survival of the industry and the workers in the industry is that the SABC should meet its obligations and pay all outstanding amounts due, immediately,” Mabutho Sithole, president of the Creative Workers Union of South Africa told a press briefing in Johannesburg.
”Failure by the SABC to meet this obligation (sic) and we are prepared to organise a massive SABC TV blackout.”
The union has joined television industry producers, actors and musicians in its call for the SABC to urgently pay their bills.
Sithole said the SABC continued to miss payments and contractual obligations to the production sector and management continued to hold itself unaccountable.
The crisis group said the current board must step down and Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda must call on the portfolio committee in Parliament to get nominations for a new board under way.
The groups also called for a financial bailout for the SABC, which recently said it needed at least R2-billion to pull itself out of its financial problems.
The group and its sympathisers would march to the SABC’s offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town on Thursday to present a memorandum containing these demands.
The blackout would be in the form of a consumer-driven mass switch off that would hurt the SABC’s advertising revenue. However, it would not withhold production. — Sapa