New minister has a mountain to climb

New Communications Minister Yunus Carrim‘s list of urgent information and communications technology matters requiring his attention will be piled high.
Although the old SABC board is now dissolved and an interim board has been in place for three months, there are other headaches looming, such as the six-month delay in South Africa’s long-awaited migration to digital television.
The government has had to concede that meeting the International Telecommunication Union‘s mid-2015 deadline is no longer feasible.
As communications minister, Carrim will have to weigh up the cost of his predecessor Dina Pule‘s failed defence against e.tv’s court challenge to the set-top box access control system for digital TV.
Pule has been accused of not answering a single question from Parliament this year, and relations between her and other MPs had deteriorated. Parliament is itching to hear whether progress has been made with the finalisation of the specifications for set-top box manufacturing.
Carrim will also have to try to resolve the fractious relationships blighting delivery in the communications department. He will need to take action on the future of his director general, Rosey Sekese, who was found to have misled Parliament about her performance agreement.
Carrim will also have to fast-track the allocation of high-speed spectrum for wireless broadband services, and assess the broadband policy.
Source: Mail & Guardian
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