The Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) is at a financial crossroads and will have to take unpopular and painful decisions, which will involve the restructuring and resizing of the entity. This was the response of the Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Stanley Simataa in the National Assembly on Thursday when he replied to questions about the austerity measures taken by the corporation. One of the long term measures would be to consider rightsizing the organisation, as the current staff size is no longer sustainable for the survival of the organisation. The government subsidy and NBC’s own generated income does not even cover the huge salary bill of the business. The annual salary bill of the NBC stands at N$262 million, while the government subsidy is N$140 million and own generated funds are N$100 million, leaving a shortfall of N$22 million, just in personnel cost. The NBC salary bill is 68% of its operational budget. “As painful as it may be restructuring, he said, it is unavoidable and this will entail retrenchments.” However, Simataa said, “the situation will be approached in a responsible manner.” He also told the house about historical debt with which the corporation is struggling with, such as N$363 million outstanding payment to Huawei Technologies, which was responsible for the DTT rollout, that has since come to a standstill. Simataa also said that NBC is operating with outdated equipment way past their sell-by date. This is because there are no funds for capital expenditure. For an organisation such as the NBC in such dire financial straits, has only two options, he said, and that is to ignore the impending financial implosion or opt for austerity measures, some of which are unpopular. He also dispels the popular narrative that the NBC is always seeking for government bail-outs, saying that the organisation has been perpetually underfunded. However, considerable efforts are being made to bring NBC to levels where it can function as a going concern.