The Communications Ministry has today confirmed that they are close to finalising a new licence arrangement with Digicel and Sky Pacific.
However Permanent Secretary for Communications and Information Technology Ewan Perrin says this needs to be ratified and authorised by Communications Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
Perrin says Sayed-Khaiyum is currently out of the country and will return early next week.
He says he cannot provide more information until they have briefed the Minister and receive his final approval.
Perrin says the Communications Ministry is hopeful that they can come to an agreement and issue a licence soon.
He also says that they are unable to confirm whether Digicel has agreed to all licence conditions set by the Communications Minister.
The sale has not gone through as Digicel has to agree to the conditions set by the Communications Minister.
One of the conditions includes no local content on the Pay TV channels operated by a foreign owned company.
When questioned by Fijivillage, Digicel Fiji CEO Darren McLean confirmed that they have agreed to all license conditions with Government.
He says they have had some queries on the conditions and these are all now clarified.
It was earlier highlighted that Digicel has the Super Rugby rights and this would be part of the content of Sky Pacific when they take over the operations from Fiji TV.
Fiji TV does not have the rights to show all the Super Rugby games.
We asked Darren McLean about Digicel’s plan for Fiji knowing that the Super Rugby competition kicks off next Friday.
McLean says Digicel expects to provide live games to free to air stations in Fiji but this announcement has not yet been made.
No further details have been revealed about this.
McLean says the sale of Sky Pacific to Digicel is proceeding and a new transition date will be announced very soon.
