Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has questioned the negotiations that went into a deal for the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to provide footage to the company that later became ANN7.
The deal to provide ANN7 with the SABC’s footage was done without the rival TV station requesting neither a discount on prices nor a waiver on the use of the public broadcaster’s edit suite.
Judge Zondo was questioning former SABC senior archive sales representative Sias Scott on the loss of revenue that the public broadcaster suffered.
Scott says the SABC deviated from it standard price guide in a deal to provide archive footage to Infinity media – which later became ANN7.
“Mr Howa came to see me, he was talking about there is not much money and difficult times and all that…but he never asked for a discount, you are quite right we did give it without being asked. “
Zondo says an investigation needs to be conducted to determine if the amounts specified in the transaction between the SABC and ANN7 were in line with the industry norms at that time.
“Well there should be an investigation whether this footage was sold for a song to establish what the norm in the industry is. Is R70 at that time was it the norm or not. Otherwise we are not in a position to say whether there was anything wrong with selling it for that amount, to see whether that is more or less in line or not. “
