Funding shortfall ‘jeopardises’ Sentech
Chairman Colin Hickling said in its annual report issued this week that lack of cash was “jeopardising our status as a going concern and affecting our attractiveness as an employer”.
Hickling said the year had been “extremely challenging” because of lack of funding. Sentech would lose R59m in the current financial year, returning to its previous track record of hefty losses after a short-lived achievement of cutting its losses to R17,6m last year.
One of Sentech’s main duties was converting SA’s broadcasting infrastructure from analogue to digital at a cost of R955m. So far it had been granted R650m, and would “continue to motivate” for the outstanding R300m.
Lack of cash had forced Sentech to revise its coverage plans, with a maximum of 80% of its network likely to be converted by 2010.
Sentech’s core problems were the scale of its tasks and the government’s long-running failure to give it enough cash.
Hickling said Sentech was still waiting to hear if it would get R917m to run digital and analogue TV broadcasts simultaneously until analogue signals were finally switched off.
It needed R3,8bn to build a national broadband network to take voice and internet services to hospitals and rural communities, but it got only R500m last year. It needed R140m to take part in an undersea telecoms cable project, but got just R21m.
Efforts to provide wireless high-speed internet access to consumers were cut back, and its consumer offerings would soon be phased out completely.
Hickling said a turnaround strategy was implemented to make its telecoms business profitable and turn Sentech into a strong, vibrant institution able to tackle growth possibilities.
“The success of this strategy is dependent on the shareholder providing unwavering financial and policy support.”
That has not been forthcoming for years, however, and with the treasury still not awarding Sentech more cash or giving it the freedom to raise funds from private sources, Hickling’s plea may go unheeded.
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