Should Telkom be nationalised?

MickeyD said:
The incentive to make massive profits to please shareholders/investors is removed.
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I find that to be a problematic assumption.

Profit seem to be the defacto measure of success - even for parastatals. That gets you situations like Eskom that make billions of profit but can't keep the lights on. Nobody seems to have told them that their core function in society is providing mission critical infrastructure, not making billions for the gov. I fear a similar thing would happen with Telkom.

Until that mentality changes its all a waste of time imo. I'd prefer if they stay put for now because an attempt to nationalize with the above mindset is going to be worse than it currently is, even if they do implement your suggested points. e.g. "a very reasonable price" is directly affected by that mindset.
 
MickeyD said:
I do mention that pricing will not be at cost but would be reasonable enough to cover Capex required for network expansion/upgrades. Ergo no tax money required.

Profit is only one of several targets that can be implemented to incentivise the company and it's workforce to ensure that they remain competitive.

Also remember that you will have a larger private sector involvement and they will have the option of building their own core networks or leasing it from Telkom. If Telkom don't step up they die.
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Nice in theory. Still better managed by private industry imo. There's no need for governments to own and operate any companies on our behalf...
 
MickeyD said:
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I'm paying tax money so more well off people can zoom around to CT and wherever while I have never flown anywhere...BAH! And SABC should also be privatised. There can be rules and regulations mandated 10% of this educational programs and 10% of that local in that language or whatever.
 
supersunbird said:
I'm paying tax money so more well off people can zoom around to CT and wherever while I have never flown anywhere...BAH! And SABC should also be privatised. There can be rules and regulations mandated 10% of this educational programs and 10% of that local in that language or whatever.
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What tax money?

And I'm not interested in the SABC. At all!!
 
MickeyD said:
What tax money?

And I'm not interested in the SABC. At all!!
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SAA is bailed out with tax money regularly since they cannot runs a profitable business, they are even forced to fly unprofitable routes (like between Beijing and JHB) by government instruction.

The SACB gets tax money too because they are not able to run it profitably despite all the advertising and the TV licence fees, should be sold to the highest bidder.
 
supersunbird said:
SAA is bailed out with tax money regularly since they cannot runs a profitable business, they are even forced to fly unprofitable routes (like between Beijing and JHB) by government instruction.

The SACB gets tax money too because they are not able to run it profitably despite all the advertising and the TV licence fees, should be sold to the highest bidder.
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The topic is Telkom.
 
MickeyD said:
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Like every other service. People will still complain.
We have had very good mobile telecoms industry in SA. Maybe a tad but pricey but not the worst. One could even say we've had 1st world infrastructure at 3rd world pricing.
People still complained.

If it were state owned, there's the obvious government stigma that goes with, regardless of which government is in power. So you cannot remove the politics from the idea.

In theory it's awesome. I could be mistaken but I'm sure there are some countries with this setup.

If we use sa as an example. Telkom have always been really poor at every one of their services offered.
 
MickeyD said:
In that case how will you get broadband into the bundus at the same price as in the urban areas? Or don't you care about providing broadband in sticks?
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regulate it so there cant be any monopolization/major profit in the big towns forcing them to branch out to gain as much income as possible further and further out
 
Look, nationalizing Telkom isn't the answer. Yes, there are quiet a few pros, but let's look into the con's quickly.

1. Corruption. As we all know, everything the government touches, turns into some corruption cover up. I can just see it already. There goes out a tender for laying fibre. Joe plumbers applies for the tender, because they promised the corrupt government employee R50 Million for accepting their tender application.
2. Laziness. When last were you at home affairs or even the Department of Transport (to renew your drivers license)? Surely you don't want to wait two months for a broken connection to be attended to.
3. Profits will go to some corrupt project like the etolls or the home of the president.
4. Delisting Telkom might hurt the JSE. They should rather run it as a separate entity.
 
])ragon_\/oid;12176181 said:
1. Corruption. As we all know, everything the government touches, turns into some corruption cover up. I can just see it already. There goes out a tender for laying fibre. Joe plumbers applies for the tender, because they promised the corrupt government employee R50 Million for accepting their tender application.
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As opposed to corruption in the private sector, not only in SA but in most so-called first world countries as well?
 
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