COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT ACTS TO PROVDE SOUTHSIDE FM RADIO A FREQUENCY

SOUTHSIDE FM RADIO'S APPEAL TO COMMUNICATIONS' MINISTER PROMOTES ACTION OVER FREQUENCY

Minister Yunus Carrim The office of the Minister of Communications, Mr Yunus Carrim, has informed Southside FM Radio that action is being taken to provide it a frequency in the Durban area. The Minister's Chief of Staff, Ms Siphokazi Shoba, has disclosed that all the role players held a meeting in Johannesburg on Monday, October 21 to fulfil a commitment given in April last year for Southside FM Radio to launch and start broadcasting. The meeting, held at the initiative of the Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications, Mr Eric Kholwane, was attended by the Acting COO of the SABC and senior representatives of ICASA, Sentech and the Department of Communications. The outcome of the meeting was that: "1. SABC has agreed to allow Sentech to conduct the Tests as initially agreed at the meeting in Durban. "2. SABC to apply to ICASA by end of this week for a temporary trial spectrum Licence so as to allow Sentech to commence with the tests. "3. ICASA to process the SABC application upon receipt thereof and ultimately issue a Licence. "4. Sentech to commence the tests once temporary Licence has been issued to SABC. "5. SABC recommended Lynn Mansfield to be part of the tests. "6. The steps that follow thereafter will be as per the meeting held in Durban between SABC, Sentech, ICASA, DoC , Southside FM and PPCC chairperson."

Mr Eric Kholwane The different role players have decided to take active steps after Southside FM Radio secretary and initiator, Subry Govender, wrote the following letter to Minister Carrim on October 17: "Dear Minister Carrim We are writing to you in order to seek your intervention regarding our long struggles to obtain a frequency in the Durban area for the launch of our cultural/socia/progressive radio station, Southside FM Radio. The late Minister Roy Padaychie played an important role in helping us because he knew that our Board of Governors is made up of former struggle stalwarts and that we would play a progressive and developmental role in our new non-racial and democratic South Africa once we are granted a frequency. He was even a chief guest at our fund-raising dunner at the Merebank Tamil School Society(MTSS) in Durban in February 2012. Unfortunately, his untimely death robbed us of a comrade. His wife, Mrs Sally Padaychie, has continued with his work and is a member of our Board of Governors.

Late Minister Roy Padaychie President Jacob Zuma gave a promise to Mrs Padaychie after Minister Padyachie's death that all the late Minister's projects would be carried through and completed. With this support, we persevered with our efforts and continued our negotiations with the leaders and senior officials of ICASA about our frequency requirement. We even sought the assistance of Mr Eric Kholwane, Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications, who made several trips to Durban to hold discussions with us about the problem we found ourselves in. In April this year, Mr Kholwane convened a meeting of all role players from ICASA, Sentech and the SABC to help us with our frequency requirement. At this meeting, the SABC CEO gave an undertaking that she would ensure we are assisted in us launching as soon as possible. The chairperson of Sentech, Dr Ncube, even told the meeting that he was looking forward to our launch at the end of this year and that he would be grateful to be invited to the launch. With this commitment from all sides, we informed our target market of the "good" news and began preparations to select our premises, build our studio and to recruit the necessary staff. We, however, could not carry out these tasks without the frequency.

Mr Zweli Mkhize, former KZN Premier But once again delays cropped up and we travelled to Johannesburg to hold talks with Mr Monde Mbanga and other officials of ICASA and also continued with our talks with Mr Patrick Sikhosana, Manager of Sentech in KZN. While we were at the offices of ICASA in Johannesburg, Mr Mbanga gave us an assurance that everything was on track and that they were just waiting for Sentech to finalise the testing in Durban. Mr Mbanga even telephoned Mr Sikhosana during our meeting in Johannesburg to finalise discussions with him about the frequency for Southside FM Radio. Mr Sikhosana gave an undertaking that they had carried out all the tests and were just waiting for a letter from the SABC to finalise the testing and for a report to be submitted to ICASA. While we were awaiting our frequency confirmation, we entered into negotiations with the Premier of KZN, Dr Zweli Mkhize, who gave us his full support and even arranged for us to hold talks with his Director General in Pietermaritzburg. Mrs Sally Padaychie, along with the writer, was one of the officials who travlled to Pietermaritzburg to hold talks with the DG. The Premier's office gave us their full support and promised to assist us when we obtain our frequency. We even sought the assistance of the Department of Arts and Culture and held talks with the Director General early in September about Southside FM Radio and its role in the new South Africa. We reported this to Sentech and ICASA. We had also continued to seek the assistance of Mr Kholwane. Only a week ago we held another meeting with Sentech in Durban and Mr Sikhosana once again re-iterated that he was waiting for the letter from the SABC but it seemed the SABC was not keen on providing Sentech with the letter. He, nevertheless, promised to take the matter up once again as he would be holding talks with his seniors at the end last week (September 13). At the same time he called on us to take up the matter once again with Mr Kholwane and other political leaders. At his request we we wrote another letter to Mr Sikohsana, asking him to help us in our struggles to obtain the frequency.

Traditional south Indian dancers at Southside fund-raising dinner at MTSS in February 2012 I wrote to Mr Sikohasna on Monday, September 16 2013, checking with him whether he had some "good news" for Southside FM Radio. He telephoned the writer at about 10am the same and started of by saying: "Hi Comrade Subry. I am telephoning you because what I am going to say to you I did not think it would be adviseable to put in writing." He went on to say that it seemed "the SABC is retracting from its commitment given at the meeting with Mr Kholwane". "They don't want to co-operate with us for us to finalise the testing and for us to submit the report to ICASA." He suggested that Southside FM Radio should continue to take up the matter with Mr Kholwane, Minister Yunus Carrim and if need be even with President Zuma as he had given an assurance that "all of Mr Padaychie's projects would be fulfilled". We are now writing to you, Mr Minister, to kindly intervene and to ensure that Southside FM radio is assisted in getting off the ground. We are a progressive force and we cannot understand why we are being frustrated in our efforts to launch our radio. We have been struggling for the past four years to launch, ever since some struggle stalwarts decided that our target market is an important sector of South Africa's population to be catered for and to become a full part of our new, non-racial and democratic South Africa. Members of our target market, supporters, and donors are becoming impatient and whenever we meet the people they inquire about when we are going to launch our radio station. "The launch of Southside FM Radio is long overdue" is the frustrating feedback. We would be grateful to hear from your goodself at your early convenience and would be grateful if you could kindly grant us an audience to discuss our initiative with you. Thanks and kind regards. Subry Govender Secretary --------------------- Board of Governors: Mr Balan Gounder (chairperson), Ms Keresha Govender (treasurer), Mrs Sally Padaychie (widow of the late Minister Roy Padaychie), Ms Thirupuriesundrie Govender (asst secretary), Mr Logan Naidoo, Mr Swaminathan Gounden (former political activist), Mr Richard Naidoo (deputy chairperson), Mr Denis Naidoo(former activist) and Mr Subry Govender (secretary and former struggle journalist/activist)" The Board of Governors of Southside FM Radio are hopeful that a frequency will be made available soonest for the radio station to be launched and start boradcasting. Meanwhile, we await the awarding of the frequency, we would like to appeal to all those who had shown an interest to become presenters, advertising representatives and reporters to contact Mr Subry Govender on: subrygovender@gmail.com or 082 376 9053. ends - Subry Govender.