Sources are quoted as saying board chairwoman Zandile Tshabalala and Motsoeneng approved a R8,000 one-off after-tax bonus for the broadcaster’s 3007 bargaining unit employees. The approval is part of this year’s wage settlement agreement with labour unions. On top of this a decision was also taken to extend the bonuses to middle managers. They were paid the equivalent of a month’s salary (just se we are clear; a SABC middle manager earns on average a basic salary of R38,000 before tax. The company has almost 500 employees at this level).
At the end of the year all staff members will receive a 13th cheque. The bonuses come as the SABC claims it has finally managed to recover from a financial collapse that saw it struggling to pay production houses, being forced to survive on a National Treasury guarantee and a R1bn bank loan. At the end of March last year it is reported that the SABC earned a net profit of R330m, but its accounts were in such a mess that the auditor general was not able to say if the numbers were correct. The government gave R224m of taxpayer money to the broadcaster last year.
SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyagoy defended the splurge. “I don’t know why it should be an alarming thing that we’re paying staff. You can’t be stuck with the fact that we were in a financial crisis. We’re past it and we were able to pay off all the people that we were owing.” He said his employer had R1.2bn cash in the bank. “You should be writing a story that says the SABC takes care of their staff,” he said.
