{"id":324729,"date":"2019-06-21T08:50:21","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T06:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=324729"},"modified":"2019-06-21T08:57:57","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T06:57:57","slug":"sabc-to-receive-government-assistance-to-avoid-communication-blackout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/324729\/sabc-to-receive-government-assistance-to-avoid-communication-blackout\/","title":{"rendered":"SABC to receive government assistance to avoid communication blackout"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) will be saved from an imminent communication blackout.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sabcnews.com\/sabcnews\/no-blackout-for-sabc-stella-ndabeni-abrahams\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sidelines<\/a> <\/strong>of the state of the nation address on Thursday (20 June), communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams said that her department is currently finalising an application process with Treasury.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRest assured, as soon as the Treasury finalises their processes, the SABC will continue with what it is doing,&#8221; she said.\u00a0 &#8220;You are not going to get any blackout, that we promise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The SABC is currently facing serious financial issues with the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/323653\/sabc-warns-of-a-communication-blackout-as-it-runs-out-funds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">broadcaster<\/a> <\/strong>having to choose between paying staff and municipal accounts at the end of March.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sunday-times\/news\/2019-06-16-lights-or-salaries-sabc-woes-deepen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sunday Times<\/a><\/strong>, SABC board chair Bongumusa Makhathini said that he was unsure if the broadcaster would be unable to pay for salaries come the end of June.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have not maintained any of our infrastructure and a communication blackout is imminent. We anticipated \u2018Day Zero\u2019 in March, but we have managed to stay on air until now,&#8221;he said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/323653\/sabc-warns-of-a-communication-blackout-as-it-runs-out-funds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SABC warns of a communication blackout as it runs out of money<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) will be saved from an imminent communication blackout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":209609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5554],"tags":[26,667],"class_list":["post-324729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-headline","tag-sabc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324729"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324739,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324729\/revisions\/324739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}