lewstherin
Senior Member
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- Jan 8, 2004
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http://www.finance24.co.za/Finance/Economy/0,,1518-25_1579382,00.html
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Cape Town - As part of its goal of lowering costs throughout the South African economy, the government will be unveiling a framework for regulating administered prices in September, according to Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mphalwa.
Briefing members of the press at Parliament on Thursday, Mphalwa said that work on the regulatory framework had been finalised by the National Treasury and was expected to go to Cabinet next month.
"We have to ensure that prices for such things as water, communications, energy and transport are accessible to the poor," he said.
"The regulatory structure involves harmonisation across the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and more precise definitions of government expectations of SOEs, among other things."
He added that research had commenced into the practice of import parity pricing in the country, which was expected to be completed by the end of 2004.
"We are very concerned with this issue, because we believe it denies South Africa important opportunities for job creation and economic opportunity.
"As a low cost producer, we are unable to have the benefits of these low costs with import parity pricing - it is a critical issue - the selling price of products should reflect the production costs."<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
So DTI is looking at lowering communications costs? This is surely good news for South Africans.
Interestingly the DTI announces this on the same day as the SNO - could there be a link? Are we going to see some kind of licencing/legislative requirement that the SNO provide sustainably cheaper communications??
I'm getting the feeling that this is going to be an exciting time for South African telecoms...
<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Cape Town - As part of its goal of lowering costs throughout the South African economy, the government will be unveiling a framework for regulating administered prices in September, according to Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mphalwa.
Briefing members of the press at Parliament on Thursday, Mphalwa said that work on the regulatory framework had been finalised by the National Treasury and was expected to go to Cabinet next month.
"We have to ensure that prices for such things as water, communications, energy and transport are accessible to the poor," he said.
"The regulatory structure involves harmonisation across the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and more precise definitions of government expectations of SOEs, among other things."
He added that research had commenced into the practice of import parity pricing in the country, which was expected to be completed by the end of 2004.
"We are very concerned with this issue, because we believe it denies South Africa important opportunities for job creation and economic opportunity.
"As a low cost producer, we are unable to have the benefits of these low costs with import parity pricing - it is a critical issue - the selling price of products should reflect the production costs."<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
So DTI is looking at lowering communications costs? This is surely good news for South Africans.
Interestingly the DTI announces this on the same day as the SNO - could there be a link? Are we going to see some kind of licencing/legislative requirement that the SNO provide sustainably cheaper communications??
I'm getting the feeling that this is going to be an exciting time for South African telecoms...
<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">
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