Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has threatened to withdraw financial assistance to the SABC after she took umbrage at its criticism of her decision to switch off analogue television broadcasts on 31 March.
Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has threatened to withdraw government financial assistance to the SABC after she took umbrage at its criticism of her decision to switch off analogue television broadcasts on 31 March.
The minister’s astonishing letter comes just days after the SABC issued a statement in which it pleaded with government not to switch off analogue broadcasts in South Africa’s four biggest provinces – Gauteng, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape – at the end of the month, saying only 165 000 government set-top boxes, out of 2.9 million qualifying households, had been installed by February.
“The provision of set-top boxes to indigent households is part of supporting the sustainability of the SABC and it is not based on any provision of law, policy or regulations. The provision of set-top boxes to indigent households is based on a cabinet decision that can be rescinded at any given time, if it compromises the national interest,” the minister writes.
Because the SABC’s 7 March letter and the media statement of last Friday “cannot be mutually exclusive”, the minister writes in her letter to the board that she has decided to: Notify the minister of finance of “my intention to withhold the release of [the] next tranches of the turnaround strategy financial assistance”.
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