The shareholder’s agreement for the second national telephone operator will be completed in the next few days, Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri said in Parliament on Thursday.
”I am happy to report that the stakeholders are finalising the integration process. The business plan is ready and the shareholder’s agreement will be completed in the next few days in readiness for the licensing by the regulator,” she said, addressing the National Assembly during her Budget vote.
Outlining her department’s undertakings and aspirations, Matsepe-Casaburri said she recognises that the cost of communicating in South Africa is still prohibitively expensive, but ways of reducing costs will be investigated.
”Increasing the competitiveness of the South African economy involves … lowering the cost to communicate,” she said, stating it is in line with the president’s directive to make South Africa more competitive and investor-friendly by reducing the cost of doing business.
She explained that new policy directives will focus on these matters.
Matsepe-Casaburri also noted the importance of modern technology in reducing costs and speeding up interconnectivity.
Following on from her speech last year in which she stated her intentions to change the country’s broadcasting system from analogue to digital, the minister announced on Thursday that she now intends to establish a digital broadcasting migration working group to develop a ”national strategy”.
Its composition and terms of reference will be announced next month, she said.
Matsepe-Casaburri also touched on new legislation aimed at speeding up transformation in the industry and opening doors for the second economy.
She reported that the Convergence Bill (outlining new provisions for the regulation of communications and network services in line with social obligations) is before Parliament. Once it is passed, it will ”place South Africa among the world’s leading countries in the development of the information society”.
She added that the information and communication technology (ICT) black economic empowerment charter is also expected to be approved by the Cabinet next week.
This, she said, will culminate in the publishing of a code of good practice for the ICT sector that includes the ”reskilling” and ”reorganisation” of labour and reducing the access, service and transaction costs within the sector for the second economy.
In response to her address, Democratic Alliance MP Dene Smuts — while complimentary in part of the department’s achievements — criticised the loopholes in certain aspects of the minister’s strategy.
”The department itself cheerfully lists as issues on which it is yet to deliberate and decide such questions as digitisation and a broadband strategy. [In the] meantime, wireless operators are preparing to give us what they call 3G on steroids and subsidised PCs and laptops, but the [Convergence] Bill is silent on local loop unbundling for wired services,” she said.
Smuts said that despite the minister’s BEE approach, her record has been sullied.
”[Her] track record has since been blemished by the Elephant stampede on Telkom [shares], which trampled the broad-based grassroots underfoot and sees the previous director general of this department personally enriched to the tune of well over R1-billion,” she said.
She said it seems, however, a hard lesson has been learned about one of the greatest pitfalls of affirmative action — the potential for crony capitalism.
”It is regrettably precisely in the areas affecting investment and competition that clarity is lacking, and I believe Parliament must create that clarity as African National Congress discussion evolves in favour of liberating the private sector,” Smuts said. — Sapa