Pretoria - The strong bilateral relations between South Africa and the Kingdom of Lesotho have a direct impact on the lives of citizens whether the issue is trade or Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT), says Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) acting Director General Donald Liphoko.
Speaking to SAnews after meeting a delegation from the Lesotho Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology in Pretoria on Monday, Liphoko said the two countries are at a critical stage in terms of their diplomatic relations.
“Our relations with the Kingdom of Lesotho are very strong … and our bilateral relations have a direct impact on the lives of the people of our respective countries, be it in trade or entrepreneurship, education exchange, labour and most importantly digital migration.
“It is our firm belief that our relations on DTT will propel not only our two countries, but the entire Southern African Development Community (SADC) region into the centre of the television revolution,” he said.
Liphoko said the two countries were looking very closely at how they can integrate the work of their respective Communications Ministries to make sure they are collaborating on multiple fronts.
“The major issue is to see how we can align our respective Communications Ministries … the protocols that outlines and primarily guide digital migration,” he said, adding that they are also focusing on enhancing relations on broadcasting and the important role of government communications to citizens of the two respective countries.
The Lesotho delegation, led by Deputy Principal Secretary Thabang Lekhela, is in the country for a five-day visit.
They are scheduled to visit some of the entities under the Department of Communications such as the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), ICASA and MDDA.
In May this year, Communications Minister Faith Muthambi visited Lesotho where she signed an agreement of cooperation regarding cross border frequency interference for DTT services with her Lesotho counterpart, Communications, Science and Technology Minister Khotso Letsatsi in Thaba Bosiu.
The two countries missed the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) June 17 deadline to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting.
The two Ministers agreed to cooperate in mitigating cross border frequency interference that may occur as a result of international protection of analogue frequencies coming to an end.
Lekhela said: “Our objective is to work together and improve our bilateral relations ... a successful DTT in Lesotho will be through working very closely with South Africa since they are about to roll-out the project.
“When our two Ministers signed the agreement, they also agreed to establish a joint a task team to facilitate the engagements between their respective countries; enhance collaboration and cooperation of the regulators in addressing matters of mutual interest on cross border frequency interference on terrestrial services; sharing of plans with regard to the roadmap for the release and use of digital dividend for other services as and when may be necessary. In brief, we are here to finalise some of those issues and we are quite happy with our first engagement with the South African DTT team,” he said.
The two countries also agreed to share technical implementation best practice; engage on areas of cooperation in content development and information dissemination to facilitate social cohesion integration.
They further agreed to further engage on the development and implementation of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). - SAnews.gov.za
