South Africans could soon be paying extra for both local and international streaming platforms.
With the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) currently facing financial struggles because of the high number of people who are not paying their TV license, the future might be costly to those making use of online streams for watching their favourite movies and series.
This is according to Solly Malatsi, the Minister of Communication and Digital Technologies.
The news publication Business Tech reports that Solly recently appeared in front of members of the opposition party during a Q&A session in parliament where he was questioned on the potential funding systems for the SABC.
During his response, the minister highlighted that the high inflation and low compliance have been some of the factors that are at the forefront of things that are troubling the SABC and that the current TV license system was failing.
As a counter to this downward spiral, he later suggested going towards implementing a levy that will see online streamers pay extra for watching movies on both local and international streaming applications. This would, however, exclude households who have been up to date with paying their accounts.
While doing so might cause a massive public uproar in a country that already has to deal with high levels of inflation, tax and several other expenses which are crippling households, the minister’s spokesperson Kwena Moloto emphasised that this along with several other ideas are merely considerations at this point.
“The Department is exploring several funding models, none of which have been adopted as a proposal at this stage.”
