If you’re the masochistic sort, you’d have got particular delight from last week’s meeting of parliament’s portfolio committee on communications, in which various MPs, including communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams and her equally-at-sea deputy, rambled on about the SABC’s planned retrenchments.All told, it was five hours and 19 minutes of mostly unintelligible blather, pockmarked by entirely unconvincing platitudes like "serving the public" — something of which you’d never dare accuse Ndabeni-Abrahams in particular. Nor was basic fiscal competence much in evidence either.It’s unclear why it is that the communications ministry has long been the dumping ground of the ANC’s most witless deployees. But on this score, Ndabeni-Abrahams loses nothing by comparison with predecessors such as Faith Muthambi, Dina Pule or Nomvula Mokonyane.The difference now is that the government has run out of money, and there’s nowhere to hide.The SABC is one of the most financially delinquent o...

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