South Africa’s former Department of Communications was for some years far from being a symbol of peace and harmony. At one point the role of the department’s minister resembled a game of musical chairs, with one after another being replaced due to outcry over their policies, corruption scandals or simply the whim of President Jacob Zuma.
Since it was split into the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS) and the new Department of Communications (DOC), the respective ministers – Dr Siyabonga Cwele and Faith Muthambi – have at least stayed in their saddles for more than two years, which is longer than any communications minister’s tenure since Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri’s ended in 2009.
However, the relationship between the two departments and their leaders has been far from harmonious. Seemingly the only thing the two have in common is that they have repeatedly courted controversy, and never more so than now.
Cwele has been involved in an ongoing legal battle with ICASA (which is overseen by his counterpart Muthambi’s department, as it happens) over the invitation to apply (ITA) issued by ICASA to auction high-demand radio spectrum. Cwele’s official position is that Government is the custodian of spectrum which is a national and public resource and whose utilisation must benefit all the people of South Africa. A statement issued by the DTPS on the issue pointed out that “There is presently no policy direction on spectrum that has been issued. The policy process is ongoing but as yet still incomplete.”
“The minister is concerned that ICASA’s invitation to apply for the auctioning of the spectrum was issued without consultation and prior notification to government as the policy maker,” the statement continued. “A further concern is the haste with which ICASA is proceeding to dispose of the spectrum given that this spectrum will not be immediately available. The minister is acting in good faith to ensure that interested parties who may wish to respond to ICASA’s ITA do not act precipitously by engaging in a process which may ultimately be found to be invalid and therefore suffer unintended consequences as a result thereof.”
Needless to say, the DA’s outspoken shadow minister of communications, Marian Shinn, begs to differ. She asserts that the spectrum auction must be allowed to proceed, after the ITA was amended to lower the costs of participation and some of the conditions were revised and corrected. What she describes as government’s secret plan for a wireless open-access network (Wona) may well be unconstitutional and unaffordable, she says, and is likely to be legally challenged all the way to the constitutional court should government try to implement it.
“I maintain that it is the minister’s attempt to insert his Wona plan into the white paper [on information and communications technology, being prepared for cabinet approval] so it would be confirmed as government policy, that is behind the surprise 15 July gazetting by ICASA to proceed with the spectrum auction it has been working towards for the past three years,” said Shinn. “ICASA wanted to get the spectrum assigned efficiently and transparently before the white paper inhibited it and bogged down the sector in years of litigation. It may well be one of the last bold and independent acts ICASA makes before government restructures it to remove its chapter 9 status and gives the minister his wish to have direct control over network licensing and policy.”
Meanwhile, the inevitable consequence of all this back and forth is that the marginalised communities that are supposed to be the beneficiaries of government’s broadband plans will be kept waiting even longer.
Not to be outdone, DOC minister Muthambi’s digital terrestrial television (DTT) set-top box (STB) project – another piece of the broadband puzzle by virtue of the consequent freeing up of radio spectrum – has also hit yet another snag. In a speech to the joint committee on the digital migration state of readiness, Muthambi said that the national treasury has recommended that the production process of STBs be stopped with immediate effect since the programme will not realise its objective of providing 5 million free STBs to poor households under the current funding model.
Muthambi hit out at USAASA (Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa, which coincidentally falls under Cwele’s department) over its handling of the STB manufacturing tender process. She referred to a recently completed treasury report that allegedly identified irregularities in USAASA’s conduct and ultimately recommended that the production process be halted.
For now, then, it appears that manufacturers, which have poured millions of Rands into their STB production lines, will just have to sit on their hands and wait. Again.
Brett van den Bosch
Editor
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