Four years ago, I wrote a column predicting the manufacture of digital television set-top boxes in South Africa would be a waste of money reminiscent of the Rooivalk attack helicopter project.
Ignoring the government's very first optimistic waffle, which predicted digital terrestrial television by 2008, the government said set-top boxes would be on sale in 2010, and analogue television signals would be switched off by 2011. It's now 2012, and we're still no further than a small pilot, while the Department of Communications has just announced a R7 billion funding shortfall. That's on top of the R4-odd-billion they had been planning to “invest” in the migration project. Depending on whose numbers you believe, the total cost to the fiscus will now run to about R11 billion, not counting the price private consumers will have to pay to obtain a set-top box or digital-capable television, plus a new aerial to go with it.
By comparison, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) says France spent R3.6 billion, not counting a R1.2 billion subsidy for poor households. Britain spent R9 billion. The US spent more than we're spending, but then, they have rather more television sets, a rather larger country, a rather bigger population, and rather fatter wallets.
According to the ITU, set-top boxes cost between $20 and $70. The government reckons set-top boxes will cost $50 (R400) in South Africa, presumably because they're expensively manufactured locally under exclusive contract, instead of cheaply sourced from freely competing suppliers. By comparison, a set-top box from Tata, including installation, retails for about R240 in India.
It is unclear exactly why the South African public should uncomplainingly carry the burden of a project that is at least four years overdue.
Ivo Vegter, contributor, ITWeb
However, even at the South African rip-off price designed to enrich government cronies with sweetheart deals, it would be possible to supply every single television-owning household - which we'll generously assume to be 10 million households - with a free set-top box, for R4 billion. Given that only 5 million units are being built, as per the government's plan, and the price tag for digital migration now runs to R11 billion, the total cost to the fiscus of converting analogue television broadcasts to digital terrestrial signals works out to R2 200 per television set, not counting any of the substantial costs that have to be borne by television owners directly.
It is true that there's more to digital terrestrial television than set-top boxes and new aerials, but it is unclear exactly why the South African public should uncomplainingly carry the burden of a project that is at least four years overdue already, and will cost three times as much as Parliament first approved.
Recall the unsold Rooivalk attack helicopter, the infamously corrupt arms deal, the Gautrain self-enrichment project that cannot possibly run at a loss, the Hitachi power station contract channelled through the ANC's own kickback company, Chancellor House, the cancelled Joule electric car, the unfulfilled Limpopo textbook tender, and the endless billions burnt on the smart card ID project. Then explain why digital terrestrial television migration is not turning into yet another expensive patronage project that either incompetently wastes billions on suppliers who cannot deliver adequate quality at a competitive price, or was deliberately designed to funnel billions of rands of public money to favoured suppliers, without benefiting in any way the South African citizens whom the government was elected to serve.
It is shameful. Instead of driving to Parliament in their million-rand German sedans to requisition another R7 billion from the treasury, perhaps the responsible civil servants would better serve the citizens by returning their ill-gotten salaries and luxurious fringe benefits, and resigning in disgrace.
One day, the government is going to deliver a project on time and on budget, and we'll all die of shock. Which, with hindsight, will mean even that project was a waste of public money that would have been more productive if it hadn't been stolen from South Africans at the supermarket till, the fuel pump, or the wage office.
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