SABC’s dirty deal: How public money subsidised rogue producers while actors went unpaid for months.

A crisis repeating itself

The crisis engulfing the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is no longer a shock, it is a pattern.

In a move that reeks of institutional negligence, the public broadcaster has replaced Duma Ndlovu’s Muvhango, a show long shadowed by allegations of non-payment and financial mismanagement with a new "rogue" operation that is already leaving a trail of broken promises and empty stomachs.

Now Pimville, a 300-episode telenovela produced by Bakwena Productions, now at the centre of fresh allegations of worker exploitation.

Unpaid labour, broken promises

Actors have told Public Dispatch that they have not been paid since February 2026. As April unfolds, frustration has turned into desperation. They describe a system where inquiries about payment are met with silence, deflection, and bureaucratic runarounds 'from pillar to post'.

Rashaka Muofhe, the executive producer and co-owner of Bakwena Productions, and his wife, Brenda Muofhe have been publicly showcasing what workers describe as a 'soft life' luxury vehicles, nights out, the alleged purchase of a nightclub, The Black Box in Sandton, Johannesburg, all while the people who make his show possible go without income.

“He is living large while we can’t even afford transport to get to set. They post their soft life without any care. We haven’t been paid since February. When you ask, you get nothing,” One actor told The Public Dispatch on condition of anonymity.

A lead actor had to refuse to work

The frustration has already boiled over. Sources told The Public Dispatch that one of the lead actors recently refused to go on set and demanded immediate payment. He got it. The rest of the cast, who continued working in good faith, did not.

This is not a new pattern. Workers say that even in December 2025, salaries were not paid until mid-January 2026. Christmas came and went with empty pockets.

Transport promises broken, catering that made people sick

The non-payment is not the only contractual failure alleged against Bakwena Productions. Actors say their contracts provide for transport to and from set. But that obligation is allegedly not being honoured. They are paying out of their own pockets to get to work, work for which they are not being paid and they are not being reimbursed.

Actors also alleged that catering, promised in contracts was either non-existent or unsafe. At one point, an entire cast and crew allegdly fell ill after consuming food on set.

“At some point the entire cast and crew were sick, having running stomachs because of the food that was served to them,” a source said.

Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993, employers are legally required to provide a safe working environment. Serving food that causes mass illness on a production set is a potential violation of both the OHSA and the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act 54 of 1972.

The Pound 4 Pound precedent

Bakwena Productions did not arrive at the SABC as an unknown quantity. The company, co-owned by Kagiso Modupe and Rashaka Muofhe, was already notorious for its failure to pay the cast, crew and service providers on Pound 4 Pound, a drama series produced for Paramount Africa’s BET Africa channel.

Brandon Auret, who portrayed the character of Frans, publicly said that the company owed him over R100,000 and that approximately 50 crew members had joined forces with his legal team.

Workers lost homes. They were evicted. They sold camera equipment and cars to survive. The CCMA ultimately ordered Bakwena Productions to pay R19,000 to 50 background actors represented by the Professional Background Artists agency. Service providers claim they are still owed over R200,000. A transport provider was served with a letter of demand that went nowhere.

Throughout all of this, Kagiso Modupe stood on the stage at the 18th South African Film and Television Awards, collected a Golden Horn for Best Supporting Actor, and declared in his acceptance speech that he had 'created over 2,000 jobs' and was 'the only producer who has paid royalties to cast and crew.' The people he had not paid watched from home, if they still had homes

The SABC knew and contracted anyway

The SABC was not blindsided. It walked into this with its eyes open. In April 2025, SABC Group CEO Nomsa Chabeli wrote to DA Portfolio Committee member Tsholofelo Katlego Bodlani confirming that the SABC had contracted Bakwena Productions in 2024 for Pimville. She acknowledged the payment allegations. Her assurance was that a supervising producer had been appointed to ensure compliance.

That assurance is now in tatters. The very conduct the SABC claimed to have mitigated is repeating itself, two months into the show’s broadcast run.

As a Schedule 2 Major Public Entity under the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), the SABC is bound by section 51(1)(a)(iii) to maintain an appropriate procurement system that is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective.

Section 51(1)(b)(ii) requires the SABC to take effective steps to prevent irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. If the SABC is paying Bakwena Productions and Bakwena Productions is not paying the workers, the money is going somewhere and the content is arguably being produced through what amounts to exploited labour.

Muvhango all over again

The bitter irony is that Pimville was supposed to be a fresh start. Muvhango, the 28-year-old Tshivenda soapie it replaced, was itself a graveyard of non-payment scandals.

Under creator and executive producer Duma Ndlovu and his production company Word of Mouth Pictures, Muvhango cast and crew staged walkouts in 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024 over unpaid salaries. In December 2024, approximately 150 background actors staged a sit-in at the SABC’s Auckland Park headquarters after Ndlovu’s daughter, Nonkululeko Ndlovu of Turning Heads Casting Agency, allegedly failed to pay them some for over seven months. She allegedly blocked them on WhatsApp and her email stopped accepting messages.

The SABC’s response to the Muvhango payment crises was, at best, indifferent. An SABC publicist told reporters that contracts between the production house and cast were “not the responsibility of the SABC.” That abdication of responsibility is exactly how the SABC has ended up in the same position twice.

The public broadcaster has replaced Duma Ndlovu with Rashaka Muofhe. It has swapped one rogue producer for another. Same script, different cast.

The law is clear

South African law provides a robust framework to protect workers against exactly this kind of exploitation. The question is whether anyone is enforcing it.

The Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997 (BCEA) requires that employers pay remuneration on the agreed date and at the agreed intervals.

Section 32 requires employers to provide written particulars of employment, including remuneration details.

Section 33 requires that employers keep records of payment. Failure to pay constitutes a breach of these provisions and is actionable at the CCMA and the Labour Court.

On 23 January 2026, the Minister of Employment and Labour published Government Notice 7020 in Government Gazette 53987, signalling the intention to deem all performers in advertising, artistic and cultural activities as employees for purposes of the BCEA, the National Minimum Wage Act 9 of 2018, the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 130 of 1993 (COIDA), and the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995.

This followed years of advocacy by the South African Guild of Actors (SAGA), which has consistently highlighted the vulnerability of performers who are denied basic labour protections.

The Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 obliges every employer to provide and maintain a working environment that is safe and without risk to the health of workers. The food poisoning incident alleged on the Pimville set, if confirmed, constitutes a potential contravention of this Act and of the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act 54 of 1972.

The PFMA requires the SABC’s accounting authority, the Board, to exercise the duty of utmost care in protecting the assets and records of the entity and to take effective steps to prevent fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

Section 86(2) of the PFMA provides that an accounting authority that wilfully or in a grossly negligent way fails to comply with these provisions is guilty of an offence, liable on conviction to a fine or imprisonment for up to five years.

What must happen now

The Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies should summon the SABC Board, CEO Nomsa Chabeli and Bakwena Productions to account. It must demand answers about where the production funds are going, why workers are unpaid and what the appointed supervising producer has been doing.

The SABC must immediately audit Bakwena Productions’ financial management of Pimville funds. If the company cannot demonstrate that it is solvent and capable of meeting its obligations for the full 300-episode commission, the SABC must exercise any contractual step-in or termination rights available to it.

SAGA and SABAG should escalate the matter to the Department of Employment and Labour and the CCMA. The deeming provision proposed in Government Notice 7020 must be fast-tracked. Workers in this industry can no longer be treated as disposable.

The actors on Pimville tell stories of resilience, community and hope every weeknight at nine. They deserve the same in real life. Right now, they are getting none of it.

The Public Dispatch sent detailed questions to the SABC and Bakwena Productions. Neither had responded by the time of publication. Their responses will be published in full if received.

NB: Legal documents referenced in this investigation are available in our Evidence Locker.