R563m shortfall in digital migration project
COMMUNICATIONS and Digital Technologies Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abraham says there is about a R563 million combined subsidy shortfall for decoder vouchers in the broadcast digital migration projects.
Ndabeni-Abrahams was responding to parliamentary questions from DA MP Zakhele Mbhele.
Mbhele enquired about the total number of households identified requiring state assistance through subsidies to migrate from analogue to digital signal reception.
He also wanted to know the number households that have already been migrated, to date, in each province and the targets envisaged for the completion of the project.
Mbhele also enquired about the amount budgeted and anticipated shortfalls in relation to the specified household migration targets in each province.
In her written response, Ndabeni-Abrahams said there were 4684 843 estimated subsidy beneficiary households.
Gauteng has the highest number at 1 091 256 and the Northern Cape has the lowest number at 101 885.
“The department used data from Stats South Africa as a reference point for planning.”
Ndabeni-Abrahams also said a total of 1324290 registrations were completed and 533 056 installations completed as at June 30.
However, she said monthly household migration targets were not used as a yardstick for the completion of the project.
“Instead, a determination is made to conclude a critical mass threshold of 70% household migration within a target transmitter coverage area (which covers a number of predetermined towns/villages).
“The outcome is then applied to determine the analogue transmitter switch-off (ASO) in the provincial sequence. The ASO is carried out in a provincial transmitter sequence in this controlled manner until the final transmitter within the province is switched off.”
Ndabeni-Abrahams also said the ASO process was carried out in an overlapping manner between provinces.
“The schedule is subject to continuous revision to optimise where practical, taking external circumstances and internal implementation variables into account.”
Ndabeni-Abrahams said a R1.2 billion budget has been allocated so far as decoder subsidy, excluding goods and services.
“The anticipated combined national decoder subsidy shortfall is approximately R563 million for the vouchers; an additional amount will be required for the voucher system which still needs to be determined,” she said.