South Africa’s Department of Communications (DoC) will this week host a provincial ICT Green Paper consultative workshop in the Eastern Cape, following two other provincial workshops and a national hearing in Gauteng.
The DoC announced in January it would be extending the deadline for submissions to the National Integrated ICT Policy Green Paper from February 24 to March 24.
HumanIPO reported last month the DoC was going to hold a national consultative conference on ICT Green Paper on March 3, followed by countrywide provincial consultations on policy changes.
The Eastern Cape workshop will be followed by Limpopo on March 20, KwaZulu-Natal on March 24, Western Cape on March 25 and the Northern Cape and Free State on March 27.
“The growth of the ICT sector is crucial to our economic growth, development and job-creation goals. We urge people to take part in the public hearings,” said minister of communications Yunus Carrim.
“The public hearing is an opportunity to close the shortcomings of existing legislation. We need to identify ways in which we can use ICT to improve the economy of the province in areas such as tourism, agriculture and mining. The provinces still has significant ICT services gaps in the rural areas and this hampers the ability of people in villages to access ICT,” said North West Province finance member of the executive committee (MEC) Paul Sebegoe.
