THE Department of Communications is paying R4,3 million a year to rent offices in which merely 13 people work.

This was revealed in a reply by Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda to a question in Parliament.

Nyanda said his department rented a building from the state-owned weapons manufacturer Denel to provide accommodation for ISSA - the little known Institute for Software and Satellite Applications.

Nyanda also rents the iParoli Office Park to accommodate the department's 429 staff - at a cost of R24 million a year.

The building that housed the government's aborted "112 Call Centre" cost almost R5 million in rent a year.

This was supposed to be a new call centre where anyone in any trouble could call "112" in an emergency.

But earlier this year, after spending about R80 million on the project, the call centre was seemingly shut down.

Nyanda never officially made a statement to say he was shutting this project down.

But in his reply, Nyanda said the government would not be paying any more rent for the call centre. He added that there would not be anyone working on the project for the next three financial years.

Meanwhile, in a separate reply yesterday, Nyanda revealed that the state's broadcast signal distributor, Sentech, had spent R249,000 on World Cup soccer clothing or paraphernalia.

Yesterday, Sentech said it was so cash-strapped that it would switch off the signals of community television and radio stations that owe it money if they did not pay up today.

Two weeks ago, Sentech's board of directors revealed to Parliament that they were R27 million in the red.