TOM EATON: Watching how money evaporates at the SABC
'A few years ago, my friend Alan and I found ourselves in a boardroom at Auckland Park, pitching an idea for a sitcom to a panel of imposing suits'
Last week, when I read that SABC bosses had spent 680,000 of our rands on plush hotels and flights during their trip to parliament to explain where all the money’s gone, I wanted to be righteously outraged. I wanted to sneer and point fingers. But I couldn’t. Because I, too, have wasted taxpayers’ money in the service of the SABC. Let me explain, and atone. A few years ago, my friend Alan and I found ourselves in a boardroom at Auckland Park, pitching an idea for a sitcom to a panel of imposing suits playing Candy Crush and scrolling through WhatsApp.In their defence, the suits had heard many ideas that day, both good and bad. And it’s not as if creative juices flow particularly urgently at the SABC at the best of times: on my first visit to the drama department in that building – theoretically the area most likely to be staffed by passionate lovers of the arts – I was met by an A4 sheet stuck up on a wall, on which, printed in large letters, was the motto: “THE ONLY THING WORSE THA...
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