The Digital Dzonga was an advisory council that was supposed to advise the minister of communications and the department of communications on all matters related to the national switchover in South Africa from analogue broadcasting to a digital system using the DVB-T2 standard. This process is known as ''digital migration''.
The first Digital Dzonga advisory council was sacked on April Fool's day last year when the then minister of communications Siphiwe Nyanda dissolved the council on 1 April 2010. Now his predecessor, Roy Padayachie dumped the reconstituted Digital Dzonga that was reformed in August last year but had their work immediately suspended at the end of March.
The 15 person Digital Dzonga headed by chairperson Mamokgethi Setati comprising representatives from broadcasters, signal distributors, labour, government and consumer groups has now been fully shut down the South African government. The minister of communication now wants a new internal department within the department of communications called the Digital Migration Office to do the DTT advisory work.
While analogue TV signals in South Africa are supposed to be terminated by December 2013 the department of communications that is supposed to spearhead the DTT process has still not explained how the incentive and subsidy scheme for DTT set top boxes (STBs) will work and how the department will decide who qualify for STB subsidies as ''poorest households''. The money set aside for this STB subsidy doesn't currently appear to be adequate. The department that is supposed to coordinate between shareholders and the SABS to publish and then approve final manufacturing standards and a strategy for STBs manufacturing have not yet done so. The department that is supposed to then invite tenders and then approve tenders to manufacture STBs have not yet done so.
