First development call centre to start ringing soon
The call centres, announced in President Thabo Mbeki’s state of the nation address on Friday, will employ 1 000 people each in areas to be identified by the government.
They will be part of efforts by the government to expand the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector that has grown rapidly in South Africa despite high telecommunications costs.
BPO is one of the primary sectors identified in the national industrial policy framework of the accelerated and shared growth initiative for key government interventions.
Nimrod Zalk, director of competitive strategies in the department of trade and industry, said on Friday that the initiative was aimed at demonstrating the viability of setting up call centres outside major cities.
Zalk said it nevertheless did not directly address the issue of high telecommunications costs. "That needs to be addressed quite seriously and there are some initiatives within government through which the broader issue is being addressed."
One of these initiatives was to benchmark prices across countries to establish what an internationally competitive broadband rate would be. Others were strengthening the regulatory capacity of the telecommunications sector, and beefing up competition policy. Mfanu Mfayela, the chief executive of Business Process Enabling SA, the national industry association for call centres, welcomed Mbeki’s announcement as a "good move. It means that the government is listening."
He was optimistic even though lower bandwidth rates would initially apply to the development call centres. "Once you set a precedent, you can roll out a clear strategy."
Mbeki said the development call centres’ special rate would be "directly comparable to those for the same service and capacity per month offered in any of the comparable countries".
Business Report
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