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The SOS Coalition recently wrote to the Minister of Communications about various issues concerning the imminent ICT Policy Review Process. In our letter to the Minister we:

Congratulate the Minister for appointing the Review Panel;
Request clear time frames for clear deliverables from the review process;
Call on the Minister and the Department to commit to an open and public participatory review process; and
Express our commitment to participating meaningfully in the process.

Last year, in his State of the Nation Address, the President did not highlight ICT, broadcasting and government’s plans for Digital Terrestrial Television. Members were disappointed by this critical omission. Members hope that this year given government’s stated commitment to creating a “knowledge economy” as part of its National Development Plan, ICT will be a key focus.

Minister of Communications, Dina Pule, has announced that she has instructed the Department of Communications to withdraw its appeal in the eTV set-top box control dispute.

The Coalition wants Parliament to call the Department of Communications to account in terms of the money spent at this Indaba. The Coalition, further, calls on Parliament to look at ways of finally resolving the issue of these lingering corruption allegations.

On 14 November 2012, the SOS Coalition, together with the Nelson Mandela Centre for Memory and with the generous support of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, held a roundtable bringing together a wide variety of stakeholders in public service broadcasting to discuss the current challenges facing the PBS landscape as well as forecast and problem solve those which would be brought about by the imminent digital broadcasting set-up.  This is the report.