The Democratic Alliance rejects the ANC’s irresponsible attack on Communications and Digital Technologies, Minister Solly Malatsi, over the SABC’s request for R120 million in additional funding for coverage of the 2026 Local Government Elections.
The ANC is effectively demanding that Minister Malatsi disregard South Africa’s public finance laws in order to manufacture a funding mechanism for expenditure that does not meet the legal requirements for unforeseeable and unavoidable expenditure.
The rules are clear.
Section 30 of the Public Finance Management Act permits funding for unforeseeable and unavoidable expenditure through the adjustments budget process. This includes disasters and other unforeseen or unavoidable events. Treasury Regulation 6.6 governs how such requests must be considered. Crucially, expenditure cannot qualify as unforeseeable and unavoidable simply because it is important, urgent or was not adequately budgeted for.
Minister Malatsi therefore cannot simply declare this expenditure “unforeseeable and unavoidable” because the ANC now demands that he do so. The DA Minister put his foot down. It is a case study in how the DA is bringing fiscal discipline to bear. No wonder the ANC is shocked because they are used to decades of looting taxpayers through exactly the stealth bailout that Minister Malatsi has ended.
Doing so would undermine the PFMA, Treasury Regulations and the very system of financial controls Parliament is supposed to uphold.
The ANC’s position is baffling because its own MPs sit on the Portfolio Committee that was aware of the SABC’s funding requirements. Having known about the funding pressure, they cannot now pretend that it was unforeseeable in order to attack a DA Minister for complying with the law.
Minister Malatsi’s obligation is to the Constitution and the law, not to manufacture an unlawful funding application because ANC MPs demand one.