Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams says the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is now conducting a skills audit following concerns in 2018 about the manner in which the public broadcaster embarked on its retrenchment process.
The SABC abandoned its section 189 process earlier in 2019 and then embarked on a skills audit of its staff.
The Minister, as a member of the economic cluster, was responding to questions in the National Council of Provinces.
The public broadcaster’s executives recently told Parliament that the SABC had made progress in cutting costs and improving management structures after years of neglect.
The SABC recently received around 60%, or R2.1 billion, of its requested R3.2 billion rand bail out.
Ndabeni-Abrahams says a skills audit is an important process.
“If there is no feasible retrenchment plan you cannot go ahead with retrenchments because you need to make sure that budget is available and you need to understand your capability in terms of the skills that are in house so that we do not retrench people today and the next six months you come back and say we want to rehire you at a higher cost.”
“We are considerate because right now the SABC is tapping into taxpayers money therefore we have to be cautious and not take unpopular decisions at the time and the decision been taken is what has been confirmed by the board.”
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