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The Portfolio Committee on Communications today decided not to accept the inadequate and unapproved turnaround strategy submitted to it by the SABC board. The board has had more than a year to come up with an adequate turnaround strategy, as required by the conditions of the R1 billion guarantee awarded to the public broadcaster last year. This echoes the lax attitude of the last SABC board towards financial prudence and good governance, which resulted in losses of close to R1 billion at the end of 2009.

The board and the executive management of the SABC also failed to submit a progress report of the public broadcaster's performance as required by Parliament. The chairperson of the board and the executive management have spent the last twelve months squabbling instead of performing the mandate they were given to bring the SABC out of the red.

The Portfolio Committee has instructed the board to submit an acceptable report of their turnaround strategy on the 10th of November. The Democratic Alliance (DA) supports the Portfolio Committee's refusal to consider the inadequate and unapproved turnaround strategy. We can only hope that the SABC will be able to table a detailed and workable turnaround strategy in three weeks, although the fact that they were unable to do so in over a year does not bode well.