Independent TV critic, Thinus Ferreira, asked the SABC about its obligations in this regard after the broadcaster sent him a notice on 26 August that he needed to pay his annual TV licence by month-end.<\/p>\n
The SABC’s notice did not include an invoice, Ferreira reported.<\/p>\n
“TV licence fees are payable in advance; therefore, your account needs to be renewed by no later than 31 August 2021. The amount payable on or before this date is R265,\u201d the notice said.<\/p>\n
When asked about the short notice and lack of invoice, the SABC said that the regulations governing TV licences do not require it to provide 30-days notice.<\/p>\n
“The SABC takes into account key regulations when the corporation issues the renewal notices to customers,” the state broadcaster said.<\/p>\n
“Regulation 24 of the TV Licence regulations published in the Government Gazette No 25959 of 28 January 2004 requires the SABC to send renewal notices to licence holders.”<\/p>\n
However, it does not prescribe a 30-day notice period.<\/p>\n
“Regulation 17 of the TV Licence regulations stipulate that all TV Licence fees are payable in advance,” the SABC added.<\/p>\n
MyBroadband contacted the SABC for comment, but it did not respond by the time of publication.<\/p>\n
Cabinet recently approved the SABC Bill for public comment.<\/p>\n The Bill proposes changes to the SABC\u2019s current finance plan, including their TV licencing system.<\/p>\n Prior to the publication of the Bill, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies and the SABC proposed two different approaches to fund the state broadcaster.<\/p>\n The first is the implementation of a \u201chousehold levy<\/a><\/strong>\u201d tax, and the second is proposing an extension of the current TV licence fees to include a broader range of viewing devices<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n They also suggested that if the second model is selected and TV licences kept, that private broadcasters should collect licence fees<\/a><\/strong> on the SABC\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n Yolanda van Biljon, SABC CFO, indicated earlier this year that only 24% of households are paying TV licence fees.<\/p>\n To curb this level of evasion, the Department of Communication and Digital Technologies believes private broadcasters like DStv operator MultiChoice should be required to collect the fees on the SABC\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n However, MultiChoice has resisted the suggestion.<\/p>\n \u201cOur position is very clear. We can\u2019t be held responsible for collecting money on behalf of a government entity,\u201d the group CEO of MultiChoice, Calvo Mawela, said during an investor call in June.<\/p>\n MultiChoice rejected the proposal based on several concerns, including the fact that the SABC is a direct competitor of DStv, making it impossible to justify collecting fees on their behalf.<\/p>\n MultiChoice also suggested that the proposal may be in contravention of POPIA<\/a><\/strong> as DStv is required to protect its customers\u2019 privacy.<\/p>\n The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) and MultiChoice support the idea of\u00a0using a household levy tax<\/a><\/strong> to collect the funds the SABC requires.<\/p>\n “The mere fact that a person has to pay a fee for having a television set whether it is used or not amounts to a tax or levy,” Outa said.<\/p>\n “One might still argue that where the set is used, there is a benefit which accrues to the possessor, but to pay for mere possession is akin to paying duty tax.”<\/p>\n Outa also suggested considering a regular annual state grant for the SABC\u2019s public broadcasting services.<\/p>\n “This would avoid the irregular and disastrous last-minute bailouts but provide a more stable revenue stream, particularly for the public broadcasting sector,” said Outa.<\/p>\n The SABC doesn’t need to provide an invoice or give 30 days notice for the renewal of TV licences, according to their group executive for corporate affairs and marketing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":412538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[24196,85,70071,35,475,35414,52623,19949,3406,71980],"class_list":["post-412536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-calvo-mawela","tag-dstv","tag-gugu-ntuli","tag-headline","tag-multichoice","tag-organisation-undoing-tax-abuse-outa","tag-sabc-tv-licence","tag-south-african-broadcasting-corporation-sabc","tag-thinus-ferreira","tag-yolanda-van-biljon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":412550,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412536\/revisions\/412550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"SABC\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/SABC.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nNow Read: Netflix dominates in South Africa \u2014 but two streaming services will give it stiff competition<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"