EXCLUSIVE: A STATE-OWNED MONOPOLY is holding your TV and radio HOSTAGE, and regulators have finally admitted they’ve been ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL for decades. In a SHOCKING new report, Icasa has been forced to declare Sentech a “natural monopoly” with “significant market power,” CONFIRMING the worst fears of broadcasters and citizens alike: your airwaves are controlled by a single, unaccountable entity.
This isn’t just bureaucratic red tape; this is a CRIMINAL SQUEEZE on free speech and public information. For years, Sentech has operated in the shadows, charging OBSCENE, opaque fees to broadcasters like the SABC and e.tv, racking up HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS in disputed debts while providing ESSENTIAL services. They are the gatekeeper to EVERY television and radio signal in the nation, and they have been exploiting that power WITH IMPUNITY.
What does this mean for YOU? It means the news you watch, the music you hear, and the emergency alerts you depend on are at the mercy of a bloated state company that regulators themselves say operates without “pricing transparency” or ANY real competition. This is a SYSTEMIC FAILURE of epic proportions, a direct threat to media diversity and democracy itself. The proposed “tougher rules” and pitiful R5-million fines are a BAND-AID on a GUSHING ARTERY, a desperate attempt to appear in control after YEARS of negligent oversight.
Icasa’s draft regulations are a DAMNING INDICTMENT of a broken system, revealing that WITHOUT this intervention, “prices and service levels are unlikely to be constrained by market forces.” In plain language: THEY’VE BEEN RIPPING EVERYONE OFF, and only now, with broadcasters in open revolt, is the regulator feebly stepping in. This exposes the UGLY TRUTH at the heart of South Africa’s communications landscape—a truth where your right to information is a commodity controlled by a single, profit-driven pillar of the state. The very towers that beam signals across our nation now stand as monuments to institutional capture and failed governance. Is this the fragile thread upon which our national conversation hangs?
Edited for Kayitsi.com
Author: Kayitsi.com
