Fireworks erupted on the excessive court docket in Pretoria on Wednesday because the standoff between e.television and communications minister Solly Malatsi over analogue tv switch-off on the finish of this month continues.
The authorized workforce representing Malatsi first refused to current to the court docket of their allotted timeslot on Tuesday, arguing that they wanted extra time to arrange their arguments. This was disputed by its opponents within the case – e.television, Media Monitoring Africa and the SOS Coalition – and questioned by the decide, who highlighted the urgency of the matter provided that the court docket has lower than 10 days to decide.
Malatsi’s authorized workforce, led by Kennedy Tsatsawane, SC, was granted an extension till 10am on Wednesday to current its case. A second bone of competition arose after the minister’s workforce offered a brand new affidavit on Tuesday night, which instantly got here underneath hearth from e.television’s authorized counsel, Gilbert Marcus, SC, and Media Monitoring Africa’s authorized counsel, Nick Ferreira, SC. Ferreira claimed that a number of the most pertinent data supplied within the affidavit was unfaithful.
“This late affidavit is inherently unbelievable. The ultimate paragraph of the affidavit which tells this court docket that Sentech will be capable to full the set up of government-sponsored set-top bins by the tip of 2025, doesn’t stand as much as scrutiny,” Ferreira instructed the court docket on Wednesday.
Ferreira defined that Sentech claims it can set up 383 049 set-top bins within the lower than 9 months left of the yr, that means 42 561 installations should happen month-to-month for that focus on to be reached. Sentech’s historic information exhibits that it doesn’t have such capability.
Quoting figures from Sentech’s stories to parliament, Ferreira mentioned the corporate put in 8 646 bins in December 2024, 10 293 STBs have been put in this January and eight 486 have been put in within the first half of final month. Sentech must quintuple its capability to satisfy the goal.
No materials distinction
“Whether it is attainable for the state to ramp up its set up capability by 400% to attain 42 000 [installations] a month in a single day, then why are they solely doing it now? Why are they solely doing it one week earlier than analogue switch-off goes to occur? Why didn’t they do it a yr or two in the past to make sure they saved their promise of leaving no person behind?” requested Ferreira.
He argued that the modifications Malatsi’s authorized workforce made within the affidavit filed on Tuesday made no materials distinction to the info offered by the candidates. Each Marcus and Ferreira additionally filed a movement with the court docket so as to add a value order to their utility since delays by Malatsi’s workforce compelled the listening to to go over the one day it was initially scheduled for.
Learn: Warning of TV blackout for tens of millions in South Africa
In Tsatsawane’s presentation to the court docket for Malatsi, he started by casting doubt to the purity of e.television’s intentions for taking the minister to court docket. “E.television shouldn’t be essentially litigating on this case to guard the pursuits of the poorest of the poor, it’s litigating to guard its personal industrial pursuits.”
Tsatsawane accused e.television of flip-flopping, at first supporting an expedited analogue switch-off in a excessive court docket case between Telkom and communications regulator Icasa in 2021 after which switching its stance in a constitutional court docket case in opposition to former communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni in 2022.
The court docket has heard representations from e.television, Media Monitoring Africa and the SOS Coalition in addition to Malatsi. Judgment is predicted to be handed down earlier than 31 March, though it might come later than that. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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