At the NEDLAC ICT Annual Forum meeting in late January this year, the Minister of Communications, Dr Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, reinforced her previous statements concerning Information and Communication Technologies ICT. "Our sector" she said "is recognised as the one that has profound opportunities for job creation, economic growth and development.
Together with other sectors, such as tourism and the financial sector, it was handed the baton (by Cabinet) to run the race that would bring the desired and prized changes to our national economy."
The months since the election in April 2004 have certainly seen some changes in attitude from the Government. A general feeling seems to be "OK we have done the 10 years of democracy, now let us drive to some real achievements."
An excellent example of this was the changes in regulations concerning value-added networks, voice over Internet Protocol, etc, due to come into force in early February.
After years of delays, this far-reaching legislation will result in cheaper call costs, certainly for international calls. Already Telkom is offering calling cards for certain overseas destinations at only R1,20 per minute, which seems to be cheaper than a local cellphone call! This in turn will lead directly to job creation, as we see call centres propagating, and countless intangible benefits as communications with suppliers and clients becomes more affordable.
The Department of Science and Technology (www.dst.gov.za) finally made its break from Arts and Culture, and launched its ICT Roadmap, where six key technologies have been identified and will be focused upon. It is not clear at this stage whether Government will be funding all or part of this focus, or is trying to lead the way. Given the sometimes extreme dynamics of market forces and technology in the ICT sector, the latter could be rather difficult!
Meanwhile, over at the Department of Trade and Industry, the SA Vanguard of Technology, (SAVANT) project, vanguards on, promoting our industry mainly to overseas markets.
The dti also had the task of overseeing the ICT BEE Charter, and recently issued guidelines for the various charters now in progress. The guidelines are largely based on the work done on the ICT Charter by the Working Group, chaired by Dali Mpofu. The last draft of the Charter, issued last October, was the culmination of nearly two years of work by the task team, and reflected a consensus from industry on the way forward to achieve empowerment in the sector. The Charter is now in the hands of NEDLAC, where there is some danger that issues that had been widely debated and had been closed, may be reopened. This would result in unacceptable delays that the industry cannot afford.
The ICT sector is meanwhile happily expanding its activities along with the general upturn in the economy, with companies in the sector now numbering over 8000, according to levies paid to the sector training authority, ISETT SETA. Although technology changes make it hard for us to compete as much as we would like to in the electronics manufacturing sector, software development and telecoms remain growth industries.
Our big ICT event of the year, Futurex, which combined long running events Computer Fair and Tel.Com, kicked off in May 2004 for the first time, and was also held in Cape Town in September. Set to be even bigger in 2005 (www.futurex.co.za), it will have running alongside it, Linux World, which focuses on Open Source Software OSS. This will undoubtedly spur the software community to new development opportunities, some of which were already on show at last year's event.
With affordable communications, and broadband technologies and wireless access becoming more available, the 'work from home' philosophy has become more of a reality; maybe a few more years could see all the Gautengers moving to the Cape to do just that!
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version