SABC gets no Treasury funding to cover 2026 election

The SABC has not received the R120 million its request for additional election funding.

The National Treasury has not allocated the SABC funding for the coverage of the upcoming local government elections to be held on November 4.

This was confirmed by Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi when he was responding to parliamentary questions from IFP MP Alco Ngobese about a R120 million allocation for elections coverage.

Malatsi said the requested funding had not been made available to the public broadcaster.

“There is currently no allocation of R120 million from National Treasury for the Local government elections,” he said.

Malatsi also said the department had supported the SABC in submitting its election-related funding requirement as part of the 2026/27 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) process, as well as through the 2025/26 MTEF adjustment process.

“Despite these submissions, the requested funding was not provided through the respective budgetary processes,” he added.

Malatsi stated that his department remained reliant on the government budgetary processes to secure the necessary funding.

The non-allocation of funds for the elections coverage comes as the department is considering several options for a new SABC funding model following the appointment of research firm BMIT Knowledge Group in September 2025 to develop the model amid the SABC's declining revenue and mounting financial challenges.

The firm’s final report and recommended funding options have been submitted and considered by the SABC and National Treasury before the government selects a preferred model.

The National Treasury earlier this year allocated R728.8 million to the SABC for subsidies for its public broadcasting mandate, programme productions and its Channel Africa international service in the 2026/27 financial year.

Although the National Treasury also allocated R700 million in the now approved Special Appropriations Bill to the department, this funding was meant to finance South African Post Office business rescue practitioners and address Sentech’s severe liquidity challenge arising from a dispute over unpaid signal distribution fees from the SABC.

In August, the SABC told Parliament that its chal­lenge was that it oper­ates from a nor­mal budget for news and cur­rent affairs whereas the elec­tion year demanded more scaled-up cov­er­age to provide fair and adequate cov­er­age for all polit­ical parties and inde­pend­ent can­did­ates and also reach every corner of the coun­try.

The SABC had reques­ted a R120 mil­lion budget for the cov­er­age of the local gov­ern­ment elec­tions, but this was not set aside in the 2026 budget alloc­a­tions by the National Treas­ury.