Ramaphosa needs to clarify status of STB tender process 

14 April 2015

Continuing uncertainty over the awarding of tenders to produce and supply 5 million set-top boxes (STBs) as a critical component of South Africa's migration to digital broadcasting has prompted me to write to Deputy President Cyril Ramphosa, in his capacity as leader of government business, calling on him to urgently issue a statement clarifying the process, status and reasons for the delay.

The appointment of the winning bidders was originally scheduled for 16 March 2015 but was extended to 30 March 2015.

Last Friday Business Day reported that the tender had been awarded to 20 bidders for the STBs and aerials. The report quoted the CEO of the Universal Access Service Agency of South Africa (USAASA), the Cabinet appointed agency for the STB programme. It repeated the information in today's edition.

But there has been no official release of the winning tenders and no clarity has been forthcoming from either USAASA or the Department of Communications, which has been mandated to oversee the implementation of the Broadcast Digital Migration (BDM) policy. This policy now faces a legal challenge on the encryption issue by free-to-air (FTA) broadcaster eTV. The BDM policy, as it stands, threatens the commercial viability of all FTA broadcasters, and the policy contradictions run to more than 10 A4 pages.

ITWeb reported yesterday that the tenders have not been awarded and that USAASA is repeating the analysis of the bidders' production and support capabilities - which has already been thoroughly done by an Ernst & Young team which included officials from National Treasury and the ICT sector.

This meddling in the much-delayed process must stop. I call on Deputy President Ramaphosa to act with speed, impartiality and transparency to clarify the situation and ensure that it proceeds with integrity.

I chose not to seek clarity from Minister of Communications, Faith Muthambi, as I have reservations that she is acting impartially and in the best interests of a competitive broadcasting and manufacturing environment. She seems to be hell-bent on meddling in issues her department clearly doesn't properly understand in order to protect vested interests.

I have also asked Deputy President Ramaphosa to clarify whether the Cabinet or the Department of Communications has received any legal opinions or challenges on the contradictions apparent in the latest version BDM policy that was amended without proper public consultation before Cabinet approved it on 18 March 2015. I have further asked him to be open about who has lodged these and what action is being taken on them.

The transition to digital broadcasting is scheduled to happen on 17 June 2015 and the government has failed over eight years to properly manage this process. Decisive, principled action must now be taken in the best interests of all South Africa's, not just a connected few.

Statement issued by Marian Shinn MP, DA Shadow Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services, April 14 2015