Cape Town – Two Portfolio Committees have expressed their happiness and satisfaction with the progress made towards the roll-out of the digital migration project.
The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services, Mmamoloko Kubayi and the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Communications, Joyce Clementine Moloi-Moropa, were both impressed by the report presented by Communications Minister Faith Muthambi and her Digital Terrestrial Television Programme Management Office (DTT PMO) at the Old Assembly, on Tuesday.
Kubayi said: “Huge progress has been made. We are right on track since Minister Muthambi took over in terms of running this project we can see progress. They took over this project in January this year, but substantive progress has been made. We need to congratulate the Minister and the team for the wonderful work that they are doing on this project.
“We are happy with the roll-out readiness, but we just need to get the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA) to run fast with the ordering of the Set Top Boxes (STBs) and making sure that the distribution happens.
“The Post Office should deliver the STBs because they have the capacity and the network…no one else in this country has the infrastructure which they have in terms of assisting with the roll-out. They did acknowledge that they have some weaknesses, but they need to be supported”.
Kubayi appealed to the DTT stakeholders to work together with government to build a better country.
“There has been huge financial cost because of the legal challenges relating to this project. The more we are delaying the project, the more the SABC and Sentech are incurring costs.
“We appeal to South Africans to let’s think about our country; let’s think about building a better country; let’s put aside our business and commercial interests for the betterment of this country,” she said.
Moloi-Moropa said: “As Parliamentarians, we’ve been concerned about a little bit of disjuncture because some entities are with Telecommunications and Postal Services, while the project is being driven by the Communications Minister. However, we are now glad as we can see that there is collaboration between the department and the entities.
“Yes, of course there are still some shortfalls, but at least from this presentation we’ve realised that there are very clear plans in terms of what is going to happen. It is a critical project and we will keep on calling the Minister and her team as another way of pressurizing them so that they are able to deliver on this project.
“Irrespective of all the challenges, the Minister and her team are experiencing, we strongly believe that as South Africans we’ve our own ways of getting things done.”
DTT Head Solly Mokoetle said: “I’m very excited and encouraged by the manner in which our report was received by the committees. We feel that our hard work for the past five months, is being acknowledged and well received, not only by our Minister who is always encouraging, pushing and driving us to do more, but Parliamentarians.
“I wish to believe that the country will very soon begin to realise as well that what we are doing in the last five months is close to an incredible miracle. When we took over this project it was dormant since 2008 and we’ve unlocked it”. - SAnews.gov.za
