Minister of Communications, Faith Muthambi, has ignored my application under the Public Access to Information Act (PAIA) for receipt of the report of the National Treasury enquiry into irregularities in the procurement process for the government-sponsored set-top boxes (STB), or decoders, as part of the Broadcast Digital Migration programme.

At a joint meeting of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committees on Communications and Telecommunications and Postal Services on September 16 2016, Minister Muthmabi promised to make the National Treasury’s report – which she received in March 2016 – available to the committee as it was “a public document”.

She has renegeded on this undertaking to the committees. On October 12 I lodged a PAIA application with the Department of Communications. There has been no response, despite a follow up email in November requesting one.

Information the Minister published on her department’s website, on September 16 – but which she did not share with the portfolio committees that day – reveals that:

• The forensic audit into the STB procurement process was done by PWC on behalf of National Treasury. Minister Muthambi requested the probe after I raised concerns about the tender allocations to three South African electronics ‘manufacturers’;
• What Minister Muthambi has made public about the probe – but chose not to share with the committees on October 16 despite having the information to hand – is that the process by which the producers of the STBs were selected is riddled with irregularities and exorbitant, escalating costs, and
• These include serious breaches of Supply Chain Management policies, National Treasury regulations and the Public Finance Management Act; contracts going to the highest bidder; alarming cost escalations, tender specifications being adapted after publication, and prices for STB production being adjusted upwards.

The cost of each subsidised STB with installation is now R1 670 per household, according to figures released by the Universal Service Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA), the government entity responsible for managing the STB process. The retail cost of a similar installation is about R599.

That means that the subsidised STB installation is almost three times the retail cost and is a shocking cost escalation.

Yet, Minister Muthambi has given no indication that she is taking action on the findings of the National Treasury Report and whether any official/s are being held accountable, whether any of the orders lodged with the three companies are being reviewed or cancelled, or whether any action is being taken against any of the contracted service providers to the tender process are being brought to book.

I call on her to publicly state what action she has taken on this report and to immediately release it in its entirety.

 

Issued by DA