SIBC financial report for 2017 clear

The national broadcaster, SIBC, has received a good report from the Auditor General who studied the corporation’s financial report for 2017 and found that the accounts have been well maintained and therefore accepted without any qualification.

This is the second year running that SIBC has had a clean audit report, and Chairman of the Board Robert Iroga has congratulated the management and staff on this achievement.

Since 2013, the SIBC has been able to achieve operational surpluses despite debts from previous years’ operations hanging over it.

Last year, however, a small operational deficit was recorded due mainly to the cash flow crisis in Government.

SIBC is a state-owned enterprise that operates in an unregulated market, and because Government has not been able to provide it with capital for expansion and improvement, questions are now being asked about whether it should be privatised.

Chief Executive Officer Ashley Wickham, who will retire shortly, said SIBC can operate successfully as either an SOE or a privatised entity provided it is sufficiently capitalised to adopt new digital technologies and introduce a national television service.