Cashing in on Telkom

[AdLo]

A cheque for more than R800-million could soon be winging its way to former Department of Communications director general and Dimension Data chairperson Andile Ngcaba.

If continuing talks between Telkom, Vodafone and MTN materialise into a deal where Telkom offloads its 50% stake in mobile partner Vodacom, valued at between R70-billion and R75-billion, Ngcaba and other Elephant Consortium partners stand to be handsomely rewarded.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=318596&area=/insight/insight__economy__business/

 

[Abe]

IMO the best situation would be for a shell to be created that owns and licenses out the local loop at cost + 20%. This shell could be owned by government or business. All operaters would then have the option of leasing fixed lines at the same cost.

 

[krycor]

i'd prefer it if the LL belonged to the municipalities and telecoms services run over it in an unbundled fashion. After all, it would go with the gov's need to be directly involved in providing service for its people. This way they are directly responsible. And the gov as such can still cash in their shares cause municipalities and gov as a whole is different

 

[Abe]

i'd prefer it if the LL belonged to the municipalities and telecoms services run over it in an unbundled fashion. After all, it would go with the gov's need to be directly involved in providing service for its people. This way they are directly responsible. And the gov as such can still cash in their shares cause municipalities and gov as a whole is different

New Zealand went the route of forcing NZ Telecom to rent out the lines at cost + % to other companies as well. It worked very well there.

 

[Pe-Killer]

I just want that cheque. imagen 800 million

 

[AirWolf]

A cheque for more than R800 million

Oh wait:cheque returned R/D --> exceeds R5 million maximum amount allowed on cheques is SA

 

[fskmh]

Oh wait:cheque returned R/D --> exceeds R5 million maximum amount allowed on cheques is SA

No problem, 160 x R5 mil cheques + 1 dustbin bag .

 

[Abe]

I just can't help but see a conflict of interest between someone who was fornally with the DOC and having a share in the Elephant Consortium.

 

[zaknight]

Good one for the former DG

Just a quick thought. Wasn't the former DG, Mr Andile instrumental in forming government policy regarding telecoms in South Africa. As a result thereof SBC raped the South African public in terms of telecoms costs. To this day South Africans are bring stolen from as a result of this telecoms policy which has failed in much the same way that health, agriculture etc has. Now Mr Andile is getting a rather fat cheque from the company which has cause the misery of so many in South Africa. I personally have nothing against business, but using a position in government to get what you want at the expense of all your fellow countrymen, isn't that a little nasty ?

 

[HosstheBoss]

First thing I'd do with that 800 mil is buy Ivys house and make her live in the flat in the back

 

[Debbie]

While still director general of the Department of Communications, Andile Ngcaba devised a strategy to bid for Thintana's shares if and when they came available, Myers told the authors.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/1241.html

 

[Sneeky]

Not far fetched to think that TELKOM is merely a vehicle devised and protected by the state to enrich the ANC elite, promote BEE and provide massive amounts of safe money for the government pension fund/PIC. All at the expense of the economy.

 

[ic]

However, another analyst said he thought the deal would get the green light from the competition authorities, stating that a move that saw Telkom aligned with the second-biggest mobile player in South Africa rather than the biggest would be seen favourably.

True to an extent, but IMO Telkodemonopolies aligned with the smallest & arguably unsuccessful & cash-strapped cellular network operator, aka CellC, would be considerably more palatable to the Competition Tribunal and consumers.

I'm sure Vodacom|Vodafone would prefer that Telkodemonopolies bought CellC than have MTN buy Telkodemonopolies.

Also, if Telkodemonopolies bought CellC, it would force both Vodacom and MTN to self-provision their own fibre optic infrastructure as fast as humanly possible, compare that to MTN gaining Telkodemonopolies' fibre optic infrastructure overnight with sufficient base-stations to actually make use of that bandwidth almost immediately.

It would be better if Telkodemonopolies-CellC had the bandwidth but had to put in considerably more base-stations over time to actually make use of the new supply of backhaul bandwidth, and there is also the possibility that CellC might then join the 21st century and aggressively implement something like HSPA - since there aren't any cellphone handsets that also support WiMax, and CellC is still stuck in the traditional voice revenue mindset instead of data and VoIP - although that could change...

 

[mancombseepgood]

smoke and mirrors IMO.

 

[remybfg10k]

i feel sick reading that one person would get R800 million while people are struggling......

 

[StrontiumDog]

i feel sick reading that one person would get R800 million while people are struggling......

Ditto, but more because of the way he and others like him engineered that result!