Offices in New York, Bejing, Dakar, Sao Paolo and Brussels will be closed.

The interim SABC board said it could not afford the millions of rand it took to keep the offices open.

"I am proud to announce that nobody is going to lose his or her job. We have restructured and people have been placed in other bureaus and others have been recalled to south Africa where they have been deployed," said deputy interim board chair Professor Phil Mtimkulu.