JAUNDICED EYE
They are “special cases”, every one of them. Every week they shuffle through the parliamentary committees and into the media spotlight, each one in turn wheedling for more.
Every ministry, every state agency, every over-staffed and under-performing creation of a government whose strongest raison d’être is the creation of jobs for pals and sinecures for cadres. They’re all there, plucking at the taxpayer sleeve, demanding more dosh, failing which the sky will fall and the Republic will be ruined.
This week it was the turns of the public broadcaster (SABC) and the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). Both are in dire straits. The fans of both insist that if they are not bailed out, the world as we know it will crumble.
The SABC has been limping from bailout to bailout for half a dozen years. In 2018/19, it had a deficit of R444m and got a R3.2bn bailout. This past financial year it lost R511m and is on track to a R1.2bn loss in 2021.
Almost 50% of the SABC’s revenue is spent on its 3,000 employees, who are paid (I hesitate to use the word earn) R3bn a year. That staggering wage bill — a million bucks a year per person — is around four times what the equivalent private sector worker earns annually. It’s also more than two-and-a-half times the R393,000 average annual public service salary.