LIVE FEED: State capture inquiry - February 26, 2020

Former SABC CEO Lulama Mokhobo will testify at the Zondo commission. Picture: Dumisani Dube/African News Agency (ANA)

Former SABC CEO Lulama Mokhobo will testify at the Zondo commission. Picture: Dumisani Dube/African News Agency (ANA)

Published Feb 26, 2020

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Johannesburg - The Zondo commission will continue hearing SABC related testimony on Wednesday morning.

Former SABC CEO Lulama Mokhobo will take the stand.

On Tuesday, the commission heard from former minister of communications Yunus Carrim.

Carrim was appointed as communication minister in July 2013 and did not return to the role following the 2014 elections.

He broke-down the hostility he received when he raised questions about the MultiChoice deal, which was signed two weeks before he was appointed minister in July 2013.

The deal was signed in 2013 and was largely seen as controversial. It gave MultiChoice access to the SABC's archives and included that the SABC would broadcast a news channel on the pay television service providers DSTV platform.

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The deal also resulted in an entertainment channel called SABC Encore which also airs on DSTV. The SABC would be paid R553 million over five years.

What raised Carrim concerns was that the value of the SABC archives was worth more than the offer tabled by MultiChoice, he estimated that they could have been worth about R1 billion.

Carrim said even if the deal did not mean that the SABC was selling its archives and it was just offering MultiChoice exclusive access, this was still problematic. 

"It was not just the fact that MultiChoice would have access, it was also that the value of archives was substantially reduced as to what Multi-Choice offered. Those archives were probably worth around an R1 billion," he said.

Carrim said what was also of concern about the commercial deal was that it included a clause which barred the SABC from adding encryption. The former minister said this clause had no basis for forming part of a commercial deal and was an example of "regulatory capture".

The commission resumes at 10 am.

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