China’s economic engagement in Africa has sure offered some benefits to the continent, especially in terms of industrialisation and projects that require large investment and long pay-back terms that traditional donors are unwilling to provide.

China, however, is not the one to insist on good governance, respect for human rights or a crusade against corruption. Its goal is to subjugate such ideals to economic gains. That is not a model I admire. The Chinese model is souless. In many parts of Africa, Chinese-owned businesses are notorious for abridging workers’ rights. Most notably, this takes the form of inordinately long working hours, rampant union busting, arbitrary pay cuts and refusal to pay during maternity periods.

The Joint Venture agreement between the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, and StarTV Network, promoters of StarTimes, gives too much to the Chinese partners. StarTimes is licensed to provide Digital Terrestrial Television, DTT, in Nigeria. The agreement produced NTAStarTV Network, in which the NTA has 30 per cent shareholding, acquired at the cost of N750million, which the Federal Government paid as licence fee on behalf of the NTA to the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC.

The agreement kicked of on 1 March 2010, initially as a trial, and was launched just four months later. The purpose of the agreement, according to the website of NTAStarTV Network Limited, is “to provide digital pay television services to Nigerians”,  a purpose at variance with the one given by the Federal Government to NTAStarTV Network Limited to assist the country in its bid to realise the aims of digital migration.

While the agreement allows the parties involved to provide part pay TV and part free-to-air services of their DTT platform, NTAStarTV Network only provides pay TV service. When subscription expires, viewers are immediately disconnected from the payTV platform as well as the free-to-air channels.  The terms of the agreement also prohibit the NTA from entering into any relationship with another broadcaster, satellite or terrestrial. The terms demand NTA to annul those it had entered into prior to the dalliance with StarTimes.

This implies that sources of income, which the NTA got through shared sites, have been blocked. The potential for further erosion of Nigeria’s interest is also inherent in the agreement.  On account of its 157 transmission sites across the country, the NTA has been recommended as the public broadcasting signal distributor.

One of the team’s first step may be the ratification of the NTA as the signal distributor, a development that will make NTA the custodian of all distribution frequencies in the country and operators will have no other option other than to go to the NBC for licensing and the NTA for frequencies. This has the potential of handing a sector as sensitive as  broadcasting to a Chinese firm. In similar vein, NTA, as the public signal distributor, will have near-total control over broadcasters, which will be dependent on it for frequencies.

In Kenya, the Nation Media Group, NMG, which is the biggest media organisation in East and Central Africa, took on StarTimes, the Chinese software and media giant, last year. NMG alleged that the Chinese company issued 5% of its shareholding to Kenyan government officials to smoothen the way through which licences were obtained. NMG wondered why a joint application for licensing by Nation Media and Royal Media was rejected for a lack of a bond of $5,700 when the two companies had the capacity to provide such. “We are questioning why the licensing is being done in a discriminatory manner,” said their lawyer.

The same year, there was also vociferous dissent from Communication Commission of Kenya against Star Times for charging its subscribers for free-to-air channels. Similar anger was expressed in a dispute between Ugandan and the company, which allegedly sold subscribers outdated decoders to over 130,000 complainants allegedly duped into paying for the outmoded appliances.

In Mozambique, the Centre for Public Integrity, an advocacy group in the country, last month, alleged that the $133million contract awarded to the software arm of StarTimes for the digitalisation of radio and television lacked transparency.  The group argued that the contract was awarded “without a public tender”, a charge denied by Gabriel Muthisse, the country’s Minister for Communications and Transport.

A forthnight ago, the software arm of StarTimes, lost some of its rating in Ghana. The West African country, which awarded the contract for the country’s $95million digital migration project to StarTimes, appears to be having second thoughts, a hint of which was provided by the country’s Minister for Communications, Dr. Omane Boamah.

The minister’s reservation was expressed during a visit to his office by the new Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, Sun Baohong. Shooting straight, Boamah said the government of his country has become worried by delays in the release of funding for Ghana’s migration from the analogue to the digital terrestrial television system. Funding for the migration project, billed for completion this December ahead of the June 2015 analogue switchover deadline, is expected to come from the Exim Bank of China.

Up till now, StarTimes is yet to receive funds from the bank, a development that is causing the Ghanaian government some apprehension and forced Boamah to threaten that his country may be forced to seek an alternative source of funding in the next few weeks to ensure its objective of migrating before the deadline of analogue switchover is realised.

Ghana’s migration from analogue to digital television broadcast kicked off last year to enable the country meet a deadline of the end of this year. However, delays in the release of funds pose threat to the successful realisation of the project. While it is not yet impossible for StarTimes to come good, the Ghanaian experience is likely to invite scrutiny to the Chinese involvement in Africa, not only in the continent’s media industry.

Abduljelil Abolad, a broadcaster and writer, lives in Oshogbo