SABC PRESSES AHEAD WITH HUNDREDS OF RETRENCHMENTS

SABC COO Ian Plaatjies says about 400 people would be impacted.

FILE: The SABC headquarters in Johannesburg. Picture: Supplied

Kaylynn Palm 

Eyewitness News

CAPE TOWN - The South African Broadcast Corporation (SABC) will go ahead with plans to retrench hundreds of employees.

The public broadcaster announced this week that Section 189 notices were issued to workers.

The SABC said it had exhausted all other options and had to restructure to ensure sustainability.

SABC COO’s Ian Plaatjies said about 400 people would be impacted - less than the originally projected figure of 600.

“The organisation continued to look at alternatives on their own and came up with the current numbers of 400; and we have 230 possible who may be impacted.”

The SABC said there were about 170 vacant positions that employees were able to apply for.

Plaatjies explained that freelancers would not be affected.

“Freelancers are not affected by this. If we were to affect freelancers, we wouldn’t need to do it through a Section 189 process. We already started with the freelance rationalisation last year and we are quite satisfied as to where we are with that process.”

Plaatjies also clarified that if offices closed, it didn’t mean employees working in different provinces would be retrenched.

“I think it’s a misunderstanding when we say closing down the offices. For example, in East London we just have a sales office there with three people. They can work from home – it doesn’t mean that if we close an office there that we are closing down the sales activity. We might just be giving up an office there.”

He also says the organisation will be going through a process of re-grading positions.

“We haven’t downgraded positions - what we did was regrading positions. Those processes hasn’t completely - it started with some internal ones and we’re going to be ramping that up and so we don’t know yet what those positions would be or what would come up because it’s obviously going to be going through a professional process.”