DURBAN- The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) wants to get to the bottom of corruption at the SABC and will meet the Special Investigative Unit and the SABC interim board on Tuesday.
Scopa chairperson Themba Godi yesterday said they wanted all the issues relating to investigations to be done comprehensively. “Tomorrow’s meeting is to agree on the scope that by the time the proclamation is issued (by President Jacob Zuma), we are all on the same wavelength,” he said.
The SABC has been haemorrhaging in the past few years, with the losses for 2016/17 financial year expected to rise to R1.1 billion. The national broadcaster has lost on successive quarters in the last financial year, recording a major loss of R509 million in the fourth quarter. This followed a combined loss of more than R430m in the first and second quarters. Last year, the SABC lost R411m and it came on the backdrop of another loss of R395m in 2015. The year before, it lost more than R500m.
The last time the SABC received a bail-out was in 2010 when then-finance minister Pravin Gordhan agreed to the R1.4bn loan guarantee. The broadcaster was able to raise the money from the banks and it repaid it within two years. But Godi said yesterday they would ask the SIU about previous investigations at the SABC.
Scopa told the SABC interim board in Parliament a few weeks ago it that wanted clean governance at the public broadcaster. At the time, Nyami Booi and Vincent Smith, both of the ANC, accused SABC executives of lying after they produced minutes of meetings they held in 2015 to discuss a tender worth R33m that was given without following procedure. Scopa asked that it be cancelled.