SA making inroads in digital migration

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Pretoria – Communications Minister Faith Muthambi will address The New Age business briefing on Friday to talk about the milestone in the migration from analogue to digital broadcasting.

The briefing will be aired on the SABC’s Morning Live.

On Friday, 28 October, the country witnessed a historic moment when Minister Muthambi discontinued analogue transmitters in the core towns of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) area in the Northern Cape.

“It is important to inform the nation that we are no longer on the list of non-starter countries in digital migration… The days of blurry television screens in the Karoo are now a thing of the past.

“We’ve successfully migrated over 3 700 households in the towns of Carnavon, Vanwyksvlei, Brandvlei, Vosburg and Williston from analogue to the digital platform,” said the Minister.

Joining Minister Muthambi will be acting Director General of the Department of Communications Ndivhuho Munzhelele and acting Director General of Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) Donald Liphoko.

Munzhelele said: “DTT [digital terrestrial television] has been almost an impossible task for many years but Minister Muthambi has delivered it within a few months at the helm.”

More registrations are underway in the Free State, Mpumalanga and Limpopo for government subsidised set-top boxes (STBs). Poor households are urged to register for free STBs at their local post office. STBs convert digital signals so they can be viewed on ordinary TVs. Registrations for STBs will open in the North West, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape and Gauteng at a later stage.

On Friday, Minister Muthambi will also talk about the unqualified audit reports for her department and its entities, including the SABC’s improved audit report. The Portfolio Committee on Communications has commended Minister Muthambi for sound financial governance.

The Department of Communications, the GCIS and Brand South Africa received unqualified audits with no matter of emphasis, an achievement described by GCIS Chief Financial Officer Zwelinjani Momeka as a laudable step towards good governance by Minister Muthambi.

Other entities reporting to Minister Muthambi that received unqualified audit reports, but with matter of emphasis, are the Film and Publication Board, Independent Communications Authority of South Africa and the Media Development and Diversity Agency. - SAnews.gov.za