LETTERS | DStv drops the ball in package overhaul - TimesLIVE

DStv’s pricing “reforms” have not delivered genuine affordability. Premium sports rugby, F1 and cricket remain locked behind top-tier packages while the rest of the schedule is padded with repeats and old movies that add little value. Renaming or restructuring packages means little if the underlying content mix stays the same.

The business model itself looks increasingly unsustainable. Advertising revenue alone cannot justify keeping flagship sports siloed on premium tiers while other sporting codes are scattered across lower packages. This fragmentation forces subscribers to pay for multiple tiers just to follow the sports they care about.

There’s also a structural gap in how packages are designed. DStv should offer genuinely separate offerings for South African subscribers versus international viewers, rather than a one-size-fits-all pricing structure that serves neither market well.

Regulatory oversight has been largely absent. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has done little to address DStv’s dominant position in the pay-TV market, leaving consumers with few real alternatives. Meanwhile, the SABC has failed to build the kind of compelling content that could offer genuine competition, leaving a vacuum DStv has exploited for years.

The frustration is understandable: many South Africans feel they’re paying premium prices for a service that doesn’t reflect global standards and are questioning whether continuing to subscribe or turning to alternatives is the only leverage consumers have left.

South Africa deserves a pay-TV market with real competition, transparent pricing and regulators willing to act. Until that happens, subscriber frustration will keep growing.

When South African law enforcement agencies joined a shocked nation in search of a possible serial killer prowling around Kempton Park, one couldn’t stop thinking about how the ANC has destroyed the SAPS. The damage control was left to a silver-tongued spokeswoman, but her eloquence couldn’t paper over the terrible reality that criminals have now become audacious, vicious and totally inhumane.

The enabling environment was created by none other than the ANC, the reckless implementation of affirmative action, poorly trained and vetted police officers and the appointment of ANC loyalists to senior positions.

But the most treasonous is the abuse of the slush funds to fight factional battles. When this was happening, local and international crime syndicates were identifying our country as a playground.

Gender-based violence is a component of an uncontrolled crime calamity besieging our country, with over 23,000 murders a year, fuelled partly by an abandoned youth.

There’s no need for a thesis, conferences, press releases, speeches, strategies, blueprints or best practice. The solution is very simple: gender-based violence will only end when men take collective responsibility for the actions of other men.

It is not enough to simply not be violent; true protection requires active peer intervention. If every single man ensures that just one other man in his circle does not harm or abuse a woman, the network of violence collapses. We must break the silence of brotherhood and hold each other accountable. The burden of safety belongs on the shoulders of men, not the lives of women.

Reading the report of the latest disclosures about events at Daybreak Foods and the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), your first feeling is that it cannot be true. Yet, there it stands in black and white:

“The DA has lodged a formal complaint with the Legal Practice Council (LPC) against attorney Pulane Jimmy Malahlela and Malahlela & Company Attorneys over extraordinary legal spending at Daybreak Foods ...”

The disclosures that the collapsed poultry company paid more than R124m to a single law firm potentially confirm a deep-seated suspicion raised long ago by the Association for Monitoring and Advocacy of Government Pensions that the company was used as a convenient conduit to channel public funds elsewhere. This shows all the signs of calculated, large-scale plundering.

What makes this crisis scandalous is the source of the money. Daybreak Foods is owned by the PIC on behalf of the Government Employees Pension Fund, the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the Compensation Fund. The findings of forensic investigations that nearly R40m in legal expenses cannot be linked to invoices at all and that millions were made in duplicate payments indicate nothing less than a national disgrace. There must be serious consequences for offenders, and the money must be recovered.

While a single law firm allegedly lined its pockets at the expense of the public, the disastrous collapse of Daybreak Foods caused nearly 1,900 innocent workers to lose their jobs. Furthermore, the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had to euthanise hundreds of thousands of starving chickens due to a feed shortage. This illustrates the devastating human and moral cost of these events.

The DA’s formal complaint to the LPC against Malahlela and Co is a necessary first step, but it cannot stop there.

This is now undoubtedly a matter for the Hawks and the Special Investigating Unit. It must be determined exactly where these millions flowed and who the ultimate beneficiaries of this plundering were. People who are guilty of malpractice or crime must be prosecuted and placed behind bars.

The time for talking is over; the people of South Africa must demand that their hard-earned money be recovered.

I’ve followed the corruption and money-laundering case of former defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula with some interest. The trial is currently postponed due to the former minister once again apparently taking ill — something that seems to occur with rather too much frequency these days among her set facing similar charges.

Mapisa-Nqakula’s claims that she’s “not an EFT person” are simply not credible. I know this woman well. Neither is her insistence on using a court interpreter when her English language skills are on a par with mine. It seems to be another ploy in the dock to buy her time to think about her answers before giving them.

She is a highly intelligent, capable and manipulative individual. She’s also a liar and a thief. And yes, you may quote me. She claims that much of the cash appearing in her bank account is from “foreign travel savings”, which is again neither credible nor accurate. I think what she means is that taxpayers’ funding of her daily allowances for all her overseas ministerial junkets has been converted from US dollars to rands and then pocketed. That’s not “savings”, and certainly not savings for the taxpayers who funded her foreign junkets.

/.I strongly suspect she has been claiming the maximum daily US dollar allowance and then not spending it. Why would she? She was the minister, and everything was already paid for. Instead of returning the unspent US dollars she kept them for herself, converted them to rands and pocketed the cash.

I suspect she’s far from being the only one who’s done this. Are ministers’ foreign travel accounts not audited? There’s also the big question of why she was overseas in the first place. Where? Doing what? What benefit to South Africa for each multimillion-rand ministerial overseas visit with flunkies and officials along for the ride? Except to accumulate more cash “savings” for her home-building operations.