Chairperson, the Portfolio Committee on Communications visited post offices, Thusong Service Centres, community newspapers, radio stations and the offices of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, Icasa, Sentech and Cape TV in the Northern Cape - Springbok in particular - as well as the West Coast and Cape Town in the Western Cape during January and May this year.
I want to highlight a few points. Firstly, regarding community radio stations, a number of the stations we visited raised the fact of the high costs that they had to pay to Sentech. It is pleasing to note that since those visits took place Sentech has revised its tariffs downwards, resulting in the radio stations paying significantly lower amounts to Sentech. Hopefully this reduction will have a positive impact on the sustainability and profitability of community radio stations across the country.
The radio stations that the committee visited reach over 300 000 people in their various communities, providing them with programmes and information that focus on areas such as education and news, as well as a range of topics relating to community, national and international interests, thus playing a very important part in providing information to these communities.
Many of these stations are well supported by various government departments, but I want to highlight a particular community radio station in Khayelitsha, here in the Western Cape. It is the Zibonele Community Radio Station. During the visit of the portfolio committee, it was brought to our attention that the Western Cape government was making use of this radio station for a range of activities to inform communities, but didn't pay or fund them. This is a concern.
We want to call on the government in the Western Cape to put its money where its mouth is and to practise what it preaches. We want to say to them, by all means make use of community radio, but pay for it. Don't expect community radio to broadcast for free. They also need support. It is a point we wanted to raise.
The Media Development and Diversity Agency is providing good support to community newspapers and radio stations. However, one of the things that came out and that constantly comes out during our visits is the high cost of printing and, very often, the low level of advertisement placement by government departments. This is something that will need to be addressed. We have raised it before and we really want to call on all departments, whether local, provincial or national, to make use of this type of medium. It gets to the people that mainstream media very often do not get to.
The post offices that we visited are providing a good service to their communities, but some of these post offices are old and in need of upgrading. Of particular concern at some of the post offices that the committee visited was poor access for persons with disabilities. Ramps were not in existence. We really want to call on the post offices to speedily install the necessary ramps if they have not yet done so, so that everybody can access those services.
In relation to community newspapers and radio stations, I think it is important that we also pay tribute to the many presenters and reporters who work tirelessly to ensure that news and topics of interest are disseminated to their communities, very often without much remuneration at all.
The Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa, Usaasa, needs to provide increasing support to Thusong Service Centres. Very often these centres provide the only access for some communities to Internet and computer services. We really want to call on them to look at how they can increase their support for some of these centres.
Sentech, which provides signal distribution, particularly in the areas we visited, needs to work more closely with the SA Broadcasting Corporation, SABC, and Icasa, to ensure that all communities receive good signal distribution for viewing television and listening to the radio. In the Northern Cape, Sentech has already rolled out 50 low-power transmitters.
The committee is generally satisfied and happy with the services that are being provided by the Department of Communications and its entities to the various newspapers, etc that we visited. What we want to do is to call on the various entities that were with us and with the committee during these visits, asking them to ensure that the commitments they made and the interventions they said would take place do in fact take place. Also, they should ensure that the committee is informed of this. [Applause.]
There was no debate.
Chair, I move -
That the Report be adopted. Motion agreed to.
Report accordingly adopted.