The Department of Communications (DoC) must do more to facilitate faster broadband access in South Africa, according to Butch Steyn, member of parliament and shadow deputy minister of communications.
Steyn said during yesterday’s debate on the communications budget in parliament broadband has a significant role to play within South African society, yet little progress has been evident in the last year.
HumanIPO reported yesterday on minister of communications Dina Pule’s speech, in which she said her vision for the country is giving all South Africans access to ICT services.
But Steyn began his speech by telling the chairperson he was tempted to deliver the same speech as last year, as everything he said then is still applicable to this year. He added nothing has changed and, “if anything, things have gotten worse.”
Speaking directly to Pule, Steyn said: “Minister Pule, you know as well as I, that not much has changed over the last 12 months to make the SOE’s efficient, and I want to tell the honourable minister… your goal should not just be about achieving clean audits only, it should, and must be, about delivering those services that they are responsible for efficiently to the communities of our country.”
Steyn said slower download speeds and increased prices are the result of a lack of competition and elevate costs for businesses, reducing their overall profitability.
“In an increasingly technologically dependent world, the ability to effectively conduct business and communicate online is an imperative for the success and growth of many businesses… Regular and easy access to the internet is an increasingly important tool to assist students to seek information to learn to write and do research,” he said.
“The current broadband announcement, to achieve 100 per cent broadband internet penetration by 2020, in my opinion, will be too little too late.”
He bemoaned the reduction in the department’s targets. The five strategic goals set by the department had been supported by 17 objectives and 72 targets, but, Steyn said, after an intervention by the Portfolio Committee last year this was reduced to 12 objectives and 34 targets.
This year, the five strategic goals are supported by 11 objectives and 28 targets, he Steyn.
Steyn added: “We are informed that the reduction in targets were largely due to consolidation and streamlining of targets and re-prioritisation. It is also likely to be due to the implementation of a new budget structure derived from the department’s organisational review that began in the 2009/10 financial year, and was implemented in September 2012.”
Steyn said this resulted in the former Presidential Commission programme being merged into the Policy Research and Capacity Development program. The ICT Infrastructure Support programme was also restructured, leaving only digital terrestrial television and broadband related activities.
“In his 2013 State of the Nation Address, president Jacob Zuma pronounced that ‘to prepare for the advanced economy we need to develop, we will expand the broadband network.’ According to the National Development Plan, broadband has a significant role to play across the African society,” said Steyn.
According to Steyn, as an emerging economy, South Africa has a low rate of entrepreneurial activity.
“Although much emphasis has been placed on the need to rectify issues like punitive regulatory burden and lack of financial capital, which constrict Small, Medium and Micro-sized Enterprise (SMME) growth, limited attention has been paid to the role technological inefficiencies play in stifling entrepreneurship.”
Steyn said the reason for the inefficiencies is largely due to the monopolistic telecommunications sector, which he believes has been “ineffectually regulated.”
