Dr Siyabonga Cwele delivered the first budget vote speech in his role as South Africa’s new minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services, asking parliament to allocate R1,59 billion to his department for the next financial year.
Identifying its main theme as ‘Moving South Africa to a Digital Future’, his speech started by crediting the democratic government’s “regulatory and policy measures” for the growth of the country’s telecommunications sector.
“The telecommunications revenues that were a paltry R2 billion before democracy, grew to approximately R179 billion in 2011 and this is expected to increase to R187 billion by 2016,” he pointed out. The minister did not elaborate on which government measures were most responsible for this success, nor did he acknowledge the fact that the period post-1994 has coincided with revolutionary growth in the telecommunications sector; a period that has seen not only the introduction of new technologies but has taken the way that these technologies pervade our everyday lives to a level not even imagined in 1994.
Cwele reiterated the importance that his department places on the ICT sector as an enabler of social upliftment and economic growth. He stated that the duplication of public and private infrastructure currently poses a challenge as it contributes to high deployment costs, which are ultimately passed on to consumers.
“To address these bottlenecks we will seek to direct ICASA to formulate regulations for infrastructure and facility sharing,” he said. “These regulations will look into how public networks can be offered on a common carrier basis so as to facilitate cost savings and the entry of many players and the enhancement of competition.” His speech also outlined a focus on open access policies and detailed a four-pronged approach to tackle the mobile termination rate issue.
Set against the backdrop of a growing number of industry and political pundits publicly casting doubt on South Africa’s ability to meet the June 2015 deadline for digital migration, the minister promised that the final broadcasting digital migration (BDM) programme would be gazetted by the end of July 2014 and that a definite switch-on date would be decided within three months thereafter.
“There is no doubt that our digital migration process has faced many challenges,” said Cwele. “The June 2015 deadline looms before us and we dare not let our people down. “This designation [of the switch-on date] will allow the industry, manufacturers and TV-owning households to prepare accordingly in order to purchase and install set-top boxes that will make the digital switchover possible. The benefits of this will include facilitating the release of spectrum, increasing the number of television channels available and stimulating local production.”
The minister indicated that the ring-fenced budget for the digital migration process is currently R2,97 billion, but did not provide details of how this money would be allocated between subsidies on set-top boxes (as well as antennas and installation) for the needy who qualify, and a programme to inform and educate a public that is still, for the most part, split between the grossly misinformed and the blissfully unaware.
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