The Democratic Alliance (DA) political party is once again calling for an urgent investigation into South Africa's controversial procurement process of the government-sponsored set-top boxes (STBs) needed for the government's long-delayed and botched switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT),a process known as digital migration.
The Democratic Alliance member of parliament, Marian Shinn, says South Africa's Public Protector, Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, can no longer ignore the urgent need for a wide-ranging probe into the STB mess.
The renewed call comes as even MultiChoice, providing the DStv satellite pay-TV service, is now being dragged into South Africa's DTT mess.
Marian Shinn says in a statement that the DA party has once again written to the Public Protector to ask that the Public Protector's office proceed with the investigation as South Africa's switch to DTT from analogue broadcasting - something that is years behind schedule - "is marred by irregularity and corruption, which needs to be urgently investigated".
The DA says its initial request to the Public Protector, acknowledged on 8 August 2017, was for her office to probe the procurement process for the government-subsidised set-top boxes,to investigate alleged tender irregularities and possible unlawful decision-making, and to determine whether the digital migration process needs to be "cancelled and rerun".
"Three months later and there seems to be little to no process," says Marian Shinn.
"This past week the #GuptaLeaks revealed how Tony Gupta acted as a channel between MultiChoice - a key protagonist in the set-top box encryption battle - and former minister of communications, Faith Muthambi, to change the digital terrestrial broadcasting policy in MultiChoice's favour, which she did."
"Today is has come to light that the Haws raided 13 of the 26 firms involved in the STB tender, following a 10-month investigation by the Competition Commission into collusion in the process."
"These revelations, in conjunction with the PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) investigation into the process, clearly indicate serious procurement irregularities or criminal acts had been commited and must be acted upon," says Marian Shinn.
"Repeated requests to the chairpersons of the communications and telecommunications and postal services portfolio committees to hold 2-day hearings into the entire digital terrestrial broadcasting process have also failed to materialise, despite being included in the committee programmes of each term this year," says Marian Shinn.
