The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) announced today (Tuesday, 30 March 2021) that it has concluded its section 189 retrenchment process, and will let go of 621 employees at the end of March 2021.
In a statement published on Tuesday, the SABC confirmed that the retrenchments will be effective from Thursday, 1 April 2021.
Per statement:
Subsequent to the conclusion of the resourcing of the new structure, the total number of employees who will leave the organisation at the end of March 2021 is 621. Three hundred and forty-six (346) of this number are employees who, notwithstanding the existence of alternative jobs, opted for voluntary severance packages. Some were concerned about the impact of lower job scale codes resulting from the organisation-wide job evaluation process, on current salaries and their pension. These colleagues took voluntary severance packages as a first option and chose not to participate in any alternative job-seeking processes.
The other 275 employees are those who occupied positions that have become redundant. Some employees in this category went through the recruitment process seeking alternative opportunities but were, unfortunately, not successful. The SABC used its best endeavours and managed to absorb affected employees who qualified for vacant positions during the recruitment process.
The SABC’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Madoda Mxakwe, says, “The retrenchment process has been extremely difficult for all stakeholders and became emotionally charged at times. The extended process unfortunately also created prolonged uncertainty and a sense of despondency for many. This was understandable and regrettable. However, despite these challenges, the Section 189 process was a necessary component of the SABC’s turnaround plan to ensure the public broadcaster’s long term financial sustainability and capacity to fulfill its extensive public mandate. The process was necessary to preserve and reposition the SABC as a resilient and viable public broadcaster and public media organisation.
The broadcaster said it will transition into the new fit-for-purpose purpose structure effective 1 April 2021.
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