Over 50 000 households that registered for government-subsidised set-top boxes (STBs) have not been located as part of the decoder distribution and installation process.
This came to light yesterday during a meeting of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies.
The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) provided a briefing on the status of the broadcasting digital migration (BDM) and analogue switch-off programme.
South Africa is still in the process of finalising its BDM programme, after missing the International Telecommunication Union’s June 2015 deadline for all countries to switch from analogue to digital TV.
The DCDT, together with its entity Sentech, is the project lead for the programme.
However, the department has faced several battles over the years as it tried to move the needle forward in the BDM process. It’s also been revealed that the state has spent close to R2 billion on dual-illumination.
The analogue switch-off and STB installation process are key pillars of the years-long delayed project.
Members of Parliament expressed their dissatisfaction with the slow pace and challenges that have impacted the BDM programme, highlighting that it has “failed” and needs “serious overhaul”.
Some of the MPs described the process as wasteful and fruitless expenditure.
Long-term effort
The switch-over process has bedevilled government for more than a decade, characterised by numerous leadership changes in the department, delays and litigation that have further bogged down the process.
Yesterday, the department’s delegation revealed that locating some of the households registered to receive the decoders is another dilemma in the project’s deliverables.
DCDT director-general Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani confirmed that government has not decided on the switchover date, pending the convening of a steering committee (comprised of BDM stakeholders and broadcasters) that will determine the digital migration progress for the households still reliant on free-to-air services.
Dr Fhatuwani Mutuvhi, chief director for the BDM programme at the DCDT, explained that following a data cleaning and packaging process, the target of registered households for STB distribution and installation shrunk from 447 815 to 401 803.
The department embarked on the data cleaning and packaging process, facilitated by the State IT Agency, to remove duplicate applications and ensure distribution and installation is concluded. The cleaned data dates to September 2015, he stated.
He addedthe data was repackaged in a manner that assists Sentech to allocate work to installers and allows installers to engage with the public on the ground.
Further drilling into the numbers, he stated that against the 401 803 target, at least 290 506 installations were successfully completed and verified.
Another 1 128 beneficiary households rejected the STB installation because they had already migrated, or their economic conditions had changed. About 6 891 installations, by the time of the report presentation, were in progress with the installers; 13 385 are under quality assurance; and 3 422 are a work in progress from reallocation emanating from households that could not be found.
He also revealed that 52 869 households could not be found during the installation process, which he noted as having a negative impact on the installation run rate.
“In the previous meeting, the number was higher than this – it was sitting at around 80 000. We are being assisted by the local leadership, municipalities, traditional councils to locate these households, which is yielding positive results,” said Mutuvhi.
“We are also making use of the online application platform developed for beneficiaries to update their details. Once this update is done, it triggers a notification to Sentech that the beneficiary has updated their details, and therefore allocation can be done.”
Sentech CEO Tebogo Leshopo explained: “The biggest challenge in terms of locating the households is that a provided location and address, when searched and identified, will not be available most of the time, so the best way will be to use the platform.
“That is the approach that we are adopting to locate those 50 000, and combined with the awareness, a call on other platforms – radio and social media – we believe will improve finding those households.”
Mutuvhi said an additional 88 810 households were successfully registered as part of the indigent registration process, adding that a consignment of 100 000 decoders has been procured through Sentech. “It was received in full and is part of the stock in the hands of the installers that are installing across the country.
“There is additional decoder stock that is procured to ensure we do not have a shortfall. Funding analysis was conducted to determine the shortfall, and National Treasury was engaged to request additional funding to cater for additional registered households.”
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