Madam Speaker, the Tissa - the Telephone Interpreting Service for SA - project was not suspended, but the tenure of the consortium that won the pilot project which ended on 31 August 2006 was suspended. The consortium was suspended owing to mismanagement of funds, lack of reporting and the low-call volume based on poor marketing.
There were only 30 employees - not 39 - namely 15 males and 15 females. Interpreters were employed by the consortium and not by the Department of Arts and Culture. Hence your query of what happened to them should be directed at the employer who would know best.
Yes, the intention is that the Tissa project will be resumed in order to fulfil the initial objectives of government in promoting multilingualism in South Africa, subject to thorough evaluation. The department would want to see a shift of focus from a stakeholder acquisition drive to stakeholder management in order to increase the use of the service, the evaluation of the interpreter training material, content, delivery methodology and facilitation capacities in order to address the apathy of site officials towards other speakers of indigenous languages and the expansion of the service to include sign language. Thank you.