Nepad-ism: how the DoC’s DG keeps it in the family
I have to begin this column with something I never thought I would ever hear come from my own mouth (or even keyboard) – I have to apologise to our minister of communications, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.
That’s right. A few weeks ago I lambasted her in one of these very columns about her dreadful handling of the landing rights issue for the various African undersea cables, after it had been reported that the East African Submarine Cable (EASSy) project could potentially be barred from landing in South Africa, due to the fact that does not have a majority of local ownership.
Since doing more reading on the subject, I have realised that it is not Poison Ivy’s fault at all, as the cable policy proposals actually come from the Department of Communications’ (DoC) director general, Lyndall Shope-Mafole.
Her thinking is that ownership of the cable should be majority local, thus effectively excluding both EASSy and the proposed Seacom cable, even though they both have local elements in the shape of Telkom and NeoTel, amongst others.
In justifying this stance, she has also been quoted as saying that government did not believe commercial cables would bring down the cost of broadband in SA, hinting that government initiatives would be more successful.
Presumably she bases this little pipe dream of hers on the fact that government’s attempts at reducing the high cost of communications have been brilliantly successful so far.
Only in her own little world could she believe that having one consortium – the one planned by the Nepad e-Africa Commission – providing services around the East coast of the continent would lead to cheaper prices than having three competing networks.
But wait. Apart from the ethical issues around the fact that the Nepad e-Africa Commission’s cable plans are based on work done while the entity was involved in the EASSy project, prior to it breaking away from EASSy amid allegations it was trying to hijack the private sector-led project, there is another major conflict of interest involved.
Henry Chasia, deputy executive chairman of the Nepad e-Africa Commission and one of the main players behind Nepad’s plans to drive its own undersea cable initiative, is married to none other than Lyndall Shope-Mafole!
That’s right, the woman who is trumpeting the need for the Nepad cable at the expense of the private sector initiatives sleeps in the same bed (both literally and figuratively) as the man who has just about the most to gain from the Nepad initiative being the only one allowed to land in SA.
This means that in addition to Aunty Ivy’s resignation – which I have called for on many an occasion – I would like to see Lyndall’s head on a pike too, because if Thabo ever listens to us (although it seems he only attempts to arrest the press these days) and does get rid of Matsepe-Casaburri, the last thing this country needs is for someone like Shope-Mafole to be elevated to the vacant position instead.
Can you imagine the levels of back-scratching and nepotism that might take place under those circumstances?
If it weren’t for the fact that in recent weeks we have seen a capable deputy health minister fired by the president on trumped up charges in order to protect the totally incompetent alcoholic kleptomaniac that masquerades as her boss, and the national director of public prosecutions suspended in order to protect the national commissioner of police from being arrested for his links to organised crime, I would have said that this sort of nepotism would never be allowed by a government that is supposedly determined to crack down on this sort of thing.
In fact, this actually goes so far beyond nepotism that it’s almost incestuous – except that if it were truly incestuous, these government incompetents would be screwing each other, rather than the citizens of SA!
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