MultiChoice Africa addresses Malawi fallout

In the escalating fight between Malawi's regulator and MultiChoice, the pay-TV operator has now been told that it must pay millions of rands in arrear fees and refunds and take its e-waste with it when it leaves. MultiChoice Africa Holdings (MAH) last week announced that it is removing its DStv service after the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) blocked its planned DStv price increase from August. The legal battle reached the High Court (Lilongwe). News24 reports a that the authority had already fined MultiChoice in January 2023 for implementing a price hike in July 2022, and also ordered it to refund all DStv subscribers for adjusting its DStv tariffs without approval from the regulator. Last week, DStv Malawi asked subscribers to stop payments and warned that all existing subscribers in the country would be cut off within 30 days or fewer. About 90 people at MultiChoice Malawi are set to lose their jobs and independent DStv installers will feel the impact, with the Malawian Government also losing out on future taxes and regulatory licensing fees.

After MultiChoice Africa announced its exit, Daud Suleman, Macra director-general, told the firm it owes more than $1m in unpaid licensing fees it needs to settle. In a letter sent on Friday, Suleman also informed MultiChoice that it must take all its DStv equipment with it and submit a plan to the regulator as to how it will remove its e-waste. The company also has to inform the regulator how DStv subscribers will be compensated for being left with worthless DStv decoders. Macra also wants to know what mechanisms MultiChoice is putting in place to ‘ensure that DStv signals from your satellite will not illegally use the Malawi spectrum after the shutdown date’. Keabetswe Modimoeng, MultiChoice Africa group executive for corporate affairs, told News24 that the letter ‘is consistent with the hostile attitude the regulator has been engaging with, disregarding legal facts around the relationship between MAH and MultiChoice Malawi’. ‘The Government of Malawi has directly reached out to MultiChoice Africa and exploratory discussions towards a speedy resolution are currently under way,’ Modimoeng said. MultiChoice Africa contends that it decides on DStv price hikes – and not MultiChoice Malawi, which has no choice but to implement price adjustments.