Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri
5/10
We were poised to give Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri a good mark this year until she exerted pressure on the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) to change the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) Amendment Bill back to the way she wanted it.
The NCOP’s change now enables the Minister to appoint and remove Icasa councillors. Previously, the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Communications refused to allow the National Assembly to be stripped of its powers of appointment and removal and spent gruelling hours achieving a compromise which preserved the regulator’s independence.
Matsepe-Casaburri’s move sums up everything that is wrong with her ministry. She is responsible for producing policy on telecoms and broadcasting, yet she does not. Instead, she constantly tries to take control of those bodies which should be given the freedom and independence to do their job beyond the control of government.
On the policymaking front, the Minister has been delivering speeches about bridging the digital divide for years, yet she has still not produced a broadband policy.
She took one step forward in September last year when she gave effect to those sections of the Telecommunications Act which allow for an opening up of the telecoms sector. However, she took one step back in February this year (when the sections came into force) by allowing Value Added Network Services the right to built infrastructure, and then revoking it again.
Matsepe-Casaburri tabled the Convergence Bill this year amid a chorus of protest from industry stakeholders who believed it lacked any kind of policy background. The DA and Parliament filled the policy vacuum by producing a rewritten Electronic Communications Bill which at long lasts liberalises the sector, creates a new landscape of interconnected networks and provides the tools that will allow an independent regulator to rein in the dominant incumbent Telkom. The Convergence Bill signals an advancement in terms of the technology neutral licensing that convergence requires. Commendably, it also tentatively introduces the concept of “significant market power”.
In the field of broadcasting, the Minister should long since have set out a framework for the digitisation of infrastructure and services so that we can move from analogue broadcasting to a multi-channelled world where scarce frequency will no longer restrict us to a miserable few terrestrial TV channels and a handful of radio stations. Decisions need to be made on technical standards and the timeframe for double illumination, during which both analogue and digital broadcasts will go out to ease audiences and broadcasters into the new era. Thanks to the International Telecommunications Union, the whole Europe-Africa region will now commence the process in 2007, and thanks to the Public Enterprises Ministry – but no thanks to Matsepe-Casaburri, who paid Sentech no attention, the common carrier signal distributor has at long last been given the R600m it needs to build digital infrastructure.
Instead of attending to these policy matters, government installed a pro-ruling party board at the SABC and is casting about looking for money to fund the two unaffordable new regional TV stations it wants to turn into further ruling party mouthpieces. Of course it suits government that South Africans are a captive audience to the Snukification of SABC news. Dr Snuki Zikalala, installed as MD of news by the ANC-compliant board that is led by the Minister’s old friend Mr Eddie Funde, now rules the roost after Head of Radio Pippa Green and Head of TV news Jimi Matthews could take it no more and abandoned their jobs. The posts remain vacant.
As we went to press, the Minister was trying to do the same thing to Icasa. Her thinking clearly is that she can’t always stop Parliament from unleashing free speech and the forces of competition in law – but if she controls the appointment of the bodies and boards that should be governing the sector independent of government, she can govern it by remote control
