Troubled SABC needs South Africans to pay more than 72c/day for licence fees
Still reeling from the financial consequences of “well-documented governance failures”‚ the SABC wants to increase TV licence fees and penalties for non-paying viewers. Board chair Bongumusa Makhathini said on Thursday that progress had been made in stabilising the public broadcaster‚ strengthening governance and regaining integrity. “TV licence fees still remain the second-largest source of revenue for the SABC‚ but we need to rebase the fee and strengthen the collection of this revenue. The SABC’s television licence fee of R265 has remained unchanged since 2013‚” he told a public broadcasting colloquium. The licence fee costs an average of 72c/day‚ for those who do pay. “In September 2018‚ I think we can all agree that there is very little‚ if anything‚ you can buy for 72c/day.” He said 72c/day provided people with 18 radio stations featuring all official languages‚ hundreds of hours of South African and international music‚ and three TV channels (plus two more on DStv) that inclu...
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