Communications Minister Nomvula Mokonyane says there needs to be a review of the cost of services provided by signal distributor Sentech to the SABC.
The minister says Sentech is the second largest cost driver at the public broadcaster. She has been speaking at the South African Public Broadcasting Policy Review Colloquium in Midrand, north of Johannesburg.
Mokonyane says while some of the financial problems at the SABC are man-made and could have been prevented; there are deep-rooted structural problems that will take many years to resolve.
“Instead of dealing with them, they’ve been continuously deferred. These issues include amongst others the public and commercial arrangements within the SABC and the continued rationale for it. And the relationship with sentech as a signal distributor given the high signal distribution and linking costs, the second biggest cost driver behind the compensation of employees and it’s an unavoidable service that has to make the broadcaster to function. We need to be dealing with that kind of challenge.”
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