Levy on households to fund SABC is unacceptable

15 December 2020

The proposal recently put forward at the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC) that every household in the country must pay a levy to fund the SABC is unethical and unacceptable.

According to a report in the Sunday Times, it was stated at the NEC meeting that it is a given that every household in the country has a TV and, thus, a levy must be paid, regardless of what the people watch on their TV.

The FF Plus finds this totally unacceptable. Due to Affirmative Action (AA), incompetent cadres were appointed and the broadcaster’s top management are paid exorbitant salaries that the SABC simply cannot afford.

In 2015/16, the then chief operating manager of the SABC, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, earned a salary of R4,197 million while the broadcaster had a deficit of R411 million for that financial year.

The salaries of the SABC's top management, consisting of eight people, amount to R31, 278 million – an average of R3,9 million per year.

The squandering of money and sheer incompetence are what bankrupted the SABC and now the ANC government wants the public to pay for it.

The FF Plus wants to make it abundantly clear that the party will strongly oppose this. Tax payers are already overtaxed and cannot be taxed any more, especially not to pay for the transgressions of the ANC government.

This is also a dangerous premise, because the government could use these same grounds to decide to levy some other form of domestic tax to fund other state institutions, like Eskom.

The South African public cannot be expected to carry this additional burden to finance the ANC's incompetence, mismanagement and corruption.

Issued by Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader, 15 December 2020