The SABC has urged people to immediately report anyone claiming to be a TV licence inspector seeking access to private homes, warning that such individuals are not employed by the public broadcaster and may be criminals. SABC spokesperson Mmoni Ngubane said the corporation had not appointed any inspectors or officials to conduct home inspections of television sets. She urged the public to report anyone claiming to represent the SABC for the purpose of inspecting TV licences to the police.
Ngubane emphasised that the SABC communicates with TV licence holders only through official and secure channels, adding that door-to-door inspections are not part of the broadcaster’s processes. The warning follows a similar incident on Christmas Day last year, when the SABC’s official X account cautioned the public about a fake letter circulating online. The document falsely claimed that the broadcaster had deferred payments to producers and service providers due to cash flow challenges.
The scam warnings come as the SABC continues to face severe financial strain. During a briefing to parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) in May last year, SABC CEO Nomsa Chabeli told MPs that the broadcaster was being “stretched to breaking point”. Chabeli said public funding for the SABC was dwindling, forcing the broadcaster to increasingly rely on commercial revenue to meet its public service mandate, which she described as unsustainable.
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“Only about 13% of our revenue comes from TV licences and that percentage continues to drop each year,” said Chabeli. She said the SABC receives no direct funding for its core public broadcasting responsibilities despite being mandated to deliver essential programming to millions of South Africans across many languages, provinces and socio-economic backgrounds. “We have to take commercial revenue and use it to fund public broadcasting. This puts a huge strain on our operations,” she said.
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