SABC refuses to come clean on R120m election funding and coverage

The SABC has refused to say whether it ever got the R120 million it said it needed to cover the local government elections.

The public broadcaster also won't say what it cut, what it spent, or whether its coverage held up on results day.

Africa Daily sent the SABC questions on 1 November.

They covered its funding, spending, readiness, technical failures and complaints about its election coverage.

The SABC answered none of them.

After two reminders, SABC spokesperson Mmoni Ngubane replied with one line on 5 November.

"I have noted that you have already written an article on this," Ngubane said.

That article reported on the SABC's briefing to Parliament on 2 October, a month before the vote. It did not cover how the SABC actually funded and ran its coverage of the 4 November elections.

Africa Daily pointed this out to Ngubane and gave the SABC two more deadlines, on 6 and 10 November. Both passed in silence.

At the 2 October briefing to the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies, the SABC put its election coverage requirement at R120 million.

Communications Minister Solly Malatsi told MPs that a meeting with the President and the Minister of Finance had not released funds for the coverage. He said the matter depended on the adjustments budget.

SABC Group CEO Nomsa Chabeli told the committee the broadcaster expected to reach final operational readiness around the middle of October.

The SABC will not say whether any of that happened.

It will not say whether it received any extra money, how much, or from whom. It will not say what it spent in total, or from which budget.

It will not say which parts of its planned coverage were scaled down or cut. Africa Daily asked specifically about debates, regional and community coverage, outside broadcasts, language services and results coverage.

It will not say when it reached operational readiness, who certified it, or whether end-to-end testing with the IEC succeeded.

It will not say whether there were any technical failures or outages, including on results day.

The SABC also refused to say how many complaints have been lodged about its election coverage, or what has happened to them. That includes the MK Party's complaint, which the party raised at the committee in October.

Nor would it explain how it ensured fair and equitable coverage of all parties and independent candidates on its budget.

The SABC is the country's public broadcaster. It is funded partly by TV licence fees and partly by taxpayers' money, and it answers to Parliament.