Members of parliament from the ANC‚ the DA and the National Freedom Party (NFP) said on Tuesday that the cash strapped SABC cannot be allowed to retrench 981 permanent workers and 1‚000 freelancers until it conducts a skills and salary audit.
The MPs made this assertion during yet another meeting with the SABC board and executives to discuss the broadcaster’s plans to lay off workers in terms of Section 189 of the Labour Relations Act.
During a sitting of the portfolio committee on communications, the legislators lambasted the SABC board and sent its members packing‚ saying they had not come to the meeting with new information on the planned retrenchments.
The MPs told the SABC board‚ led by chair Bongumusa Makhathini and CEO Madoda Mxekwa‚ to go back to their offices in Auckland Park to conduct a skills and salary audit and make a final determination of how much the retrenchments would cost in terms of issues such as severance pay.
“We’re saying the portfolio committee on communications is not for retrenchments – that is our position,” ANC MP Moses Tseli said.
“So we are saying go back and attend to the issues we have raised so that this issue can be put aside.
“We’re there to assist in terms of bringing all the relevant partners to the National Treasury, but the bottom line is that we’re not in support of retrenchments.”
Another ANC MP‚ former state security minister Bongani Bongo‚ said the SABC board needed to introduce a moratorium on hiring at senior and executive level until the Section 189 matter had been resolved.
“If you’re going to retrench‚ give us how much are you going to spend because retrenchment is also expensive.
“You must pay out people – where’s that money going to come from? If you retrench people you must pay severance,” Bongo said.
The DA’s Phumzile van Damme agreed that a skills and salary audit was needed before retrenchments could happen.
“I say to you: conduct a salary and skills audit and then present it to us,” she said.
“Here we have too many legal advisers‚ here we have skills shortages‚ here the salaries are too high‚ there they are too low and because of this audit and it’s on that basis that we’re going to retrench.
“Because you have not done that you have not given us any reason to support retrenchments.”
Nhlanhla Khubisa of the NFP also rejected the planned retrenchments.
The portfolio committee is due in Auckland Park next week to hear the views of the unions about what is needs to be done to save jobs.- TimesLIVE