How time flies! Could it possibly be just a year ago that I found myself reporting on the appointment of a new South African minister of communications?
Nope, it was in fact more recently than that. 10 July 2013 marked the date Yunus Carrim was strapped into the hot seat. As of 25 May 2014, he has been replaced by former minister of state security, Siyabonga Cwele.
In fact, President Jacob Zuma has split the former ministry of communications in two, to create the new ministry of telecommunications and postal services, headed by Cwele; and the ministry of communications, run by Faith Muthambi, which “will be responsible for overarching communication policy and strategy, information dissemination and publicity as well as the branding of the country abroad,” explained Zuma when announcing his new cabinet. The latter ministry will officially take under its wing Icasa, the SABC, Government Communications and Information System (GCIS), Brand SA, and the Media Development and Diversity Agency.
The extent of Carrim’s success during his tenure is debatable, but he was certainly a hard worker, and proved ready to take a firm stance on matters of critical importance. The clearest example of this was his controversial ruling on access control for South Africa’s digital television set-top boxes, which had some very vocal detractors, most notably Multichoice.
In the end it seems the president was displeased with Carrim’s performance since he not only replaced him, but declined to find a new place for him amongst the new cabinet. Ten and a half months unsurprisingly proved too short for Carrim to sort out all of this country’s telecommunications problems, so apparently taking a leaf out of Bafana Bafana’s strategic playbook, it’s out with the old and in with the new. Again.
As for what Cwele will bring to the position, only time will tell.
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