DoC’s Billion Rand cash cow

I wonder how much goes into the back pockets of individuals, like Poison Ivy and the likes??
If I was receiving a few mill in kickbacks or payouts I wouldn't want to give that up. That's why there is no movement for leveling the playing fields in the telecommunications arena.
 
getafix33 said:
I wonder how much goes into the back pockets of individuals, like Poison Ivy and the likes??
If I was receiving a few mill in kickbacks or payouts I wouldn't want to give that up. That's why there is no movement for leveling the playing fields in the telecommunications arena.
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QFT!!


And I'm laughing here, reading all about "price reductions" ... why the h3ll would goverment let their cash cow expire with competion when they can make easy money. No easy money means you have to do at least something... they get free money.

Edit: We can kiss "cheap" prices goodbey, until goverment sells their shares in Telkom. As long as goverment has shares, we will pay.
 
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Sticky keyboard.

Dastrix said:
Mercedes Benz
BMW SA
Dunkin Donuts
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Now I have a sticky keyboard. :D
___________________________________________

Government must not be involved with telecoms. All they need to do is have a good regulator and open up the market. Come on gov. Get out of telecoms. You suck at it ;)
 
Dividends are paid directly to shareholders. The state is the shareholder. Not Ivy or any other individual. Every South African benefits through Telkom dividends, and even more so through direct corporate taxation. Ultimately it reduces your tax burdon.

Of course, every South African also suffers horribly from Telkom's monopolistic practices and high tarrifs.

Ivy is driven by ideology (and power), not personal financial gain. On a minister's salary she can already afford all the donuts she could ever desire.

The problem with the "Ivy is on the take" style urban legend that we read so often on this forum is that everyone is so willing to believe it. Eventually imaginary corruption is thought of as being solid fact and the motivation for everything that government and the DoC does.

But I guess for some it's more important that their views are trendy and popular rather than accurate. Who needs to think for themselves, or analyze the complex telecoms landscape, when its so much easier to adopt a myth: "Ivy's on the take. That explains eveything."

People are entitled to their delusions, but it doesn't help them much if they are trying to arrive at a balanced view of what it actually going on. It just makes them appear stupid.
 
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True. Some people mistake incompetence for corruption.... I reckon Ivy is just incredibly useless.
 
Gatecrasher said:
Dividends are paid directly to shareholders. The state is the shareholder. Not Ivy or any other individual. Every South African benefits through Telkom dividends, and even more so through direct corporate taxation. Ultimately it reduces your tax burdon.

Of course, every South African also suffers horribly from Telkom's monopolistic practices and high tarrifs.

Ivy is driven by ideology (and power), not personal financial gain. On a minister's salary she can already afford all the donuts she could ever desire.

The problem with the "Ivy is on the take" style urban legend that we read so often get on this forum is that everyone is so willing to believe it. Eventually imaginary corruption is thought of as being solid fact and the motivation for everything that government and the DoC does.

But I guess for some it's more important that their views are trendy and popular rather than accurate. Who needs to think for themselves, or analyze the complex telecoms landscape, when its so much easier to adopt a myth: "Ivy's on the take. That explains eveything."

People are entitled to their delusions, but it doesn't help them much if they are trying to arrive at a balanced view of what it actually going on. It just makes them appear stupid.
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Ok, here is a curve ball for you, why is it that Telkodemonopolies does not have an up-to-date Register of Members as required by The Companies Act as amended?

There are paper A&B share certificates out there that Compushare has no record of, only Telkodemonopolies knows who it pays dividends to for those A&B share certificates, there are others that own shares via Proxy which means that their names do not appear on Compushare's listings.

Even if Poison Ivy does not personally own any shares in Telkodemonopolies, are you honestly suggesting that there are zero guavamental individuals that receive dividend payouts from Telkodemonopolies?

Even if Poison Ivy's ministerial pay covers her monthly doughnut expenses, it is likely that Poison Ivy will want her family members to inherit a whack of money if she ever dies, and a bunch of paper Telkodemonopolies share certificates would be a logical way of making some extra on the side.

The fact is that since 2003, Telkodemonopolies has been contravening The Companies Act by not keeping an updated Register of Members, and there has to be a nefarious reason for Telkodemonopolies' unlawful behaviour in this instance...
 
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1.8 billion for 38%... does that mean telkom handed out a total of 4.7 Billion was handed out... wow, thats HUGE... thats +-R150 per second PROFIT!
 
ic said:
Ok, here is a curve ball for you, why is it that Telkodemonopolies does not have an up-to-date Register of Members as required by The Companies Act as amended?

There are paper A&B share certificates out there that Compushare has no record of, only Telkodemonopolies knows who it pays dividends to for those A&B share certificates, there are others that own shares via Proxy which means that their names do not appear on Compushare's listings.

Even if Poison Ivy does not personally own any shares in Telkodemonopolies, are you honestly suggesting that there are zero guavamental individuals that receive dividend payouts from Telkodemonopolies?

Even if Poison Ivy's ministerial pay covers her monthly doughnut expenses, it is likely that Poison Ivy will want her family members to inherit a whack of money if she ever dies, and a bunch of paper Telkodemonopolies share certificates would be a logical way of making some extra on the side.

The fact is that since 2003, Telkodemonopolies has been contravening The Companies Act by not keeping an updated Register of Members, and there has to be a nefarious reason for Telkodemonopolies' unlawful behaviour in this instance...
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Curve ball? Silly chestnut, you mean. The furore over Telkom's register of shareholders got everyone excited and was a nice little conspiracy theory while it lasted. Like any other JSE listed company you can view the current list of shareholders at the registrars.Shares change hand every day.

Ivy is not allowed to own shares in Telkom, or have any outside interests that might conflict her role as Minister of Communications. Any outside interests that she has, has to be declared. That is the case not just for the minister, but for every member of government. That is the law.

Whether there is something underhanded going on.... who knows? But any speculation is currently groundless.

It is just silly to have every discussion on this forum reduced to "explained by corruption". Doing so is like having your head stuck in the sand.
 
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Gatecrasher said:
It is just silly to have every discussion on this forum reduced to "explained by corruption". Doing so is like having your heads stuck in the sand.
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Gatecrasher, when one analyses the telecommunication situation in South Africa one has to look at solutions to the pricing and services level problems. There are known solutions that have been implimented globally. Experts give their opinions on a regular basis and when one has reached a certain education level one can start to appreciate the validity of some of the statements on the current situation and what the future could hold if we impliment some very easy and simple actions in South Africa.

These include:
  1. Freeing the market and opening it up for competition
  2. Ease licensing requirements for new entrants
  3. Allow self provisioning by the populace as far as technology and spectrum allows
  4. Preventing unfair shareholder dealings including cross ownership of competing entities
  5. Appointing academic and industry experts to ICASA and the like instead of political appointees
  6. Making sure the ministry is run by competent people who are not political animals
  7. Creating transparent ownership legislation to prevent secret shares

Now start asking yourself why they are not being implimented? What you do is go through the list and look for reasons why not. 9/10 times the options you remain with are either plain incompetency, stupidity or corruption.

Now that you are left with those options you start looking at the people who are responsible for the policies. When you look at Ivy you cannot get past stupidity and don't have to look at incompetency because it is then a given. Knowing that she has been told at more than one colloqium and independent report that what she is doing is foolish, one cannot help but think that even the stupid can get the picture at some point, so the only option remaining is corruption.

Am I being mean. I don't think so. She is an oafish politcal beast that never should have gained this high an office. I do respect your point of view though, but if you track back the past decade and more you will realise that there is but only one element out of the remaining three options than can explain how some people can be bull****ted all of the time and why those than cannot aren't listened to.

C.O.R.R.U.P.T.I.O.N
 
antowan said:
Now start asking yourself why they are not being implimented? What you do is go through the list and look for reasons why not. 9/10 times the options you remain with are either plain incompetency, stupidity or corruption.
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Great post but you forgot one reason, my favorite, malevolence.

As I have said before, the telecoms situation suits our government down to the ground. The free flow of and easy access to information would not be a boon to this government.
 
Gatecrasher said:
Curve ball? Silly chestnut, you mean. The furore over Telkom's register of shareholders got everyone excited and was a nice little conspiracy theory while it lasted. Like any other JSE listed company you can view the current list of shareholders at the registrars.Shares change hand every day.
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GC, I feel like shouting from a rooftop somewhere, I will not, but this is why:

Register of Members != Register of Shareholders

They are two separate lists, they are not the same list, they do not equate to the same thing.

Compushare, on behalf of Telkodemonopolies, is required to maintain and keep up-to-date, a list of Shareholders, which is a list of electronically traded shares and is updated everytime a Telkodemonopolies share is bought or sold. That is Compushare's responsibility. Compushare does not know who holds paper share certificates, Compushare only knows about electronically traded shares where no paper share certificate is issued.

There are still paper share certificates out there, specifically relating to shares classed as A&B which have special privileges [voting rights].

Telkodemonopolies' Register of Members, if it existed, would be a master list, that by law would be required to incorporate Compushare's list of shareholders as well as a list of all other paper share certificate holders, as well as other info like the history of when shares were bought & sold & by whom and what their address & ID details were at the time.

Both lists can be maintained electronically, in realtime, or in the case of the Register of Members - updated on a regular basis.

The fact is, that since 2003, shortly after Telkodemonopolies came up with the A&B share scheme, Telkodemonopolies decided not to update its former Register of Members, claiming that a list of all shareholders is available from Compushare, this is not true as I have already explained above.

Telkodemonopolies is operating illegally, in contravention of The Companies Act [as amended], it is a fact! Now ask yourself why Telkodemonopolies is breaking the law, what does it have to hide, and more importantly, why is it that guavamentals allow Telkodemonopolies to continue breaking the law...
Gatecrasher said:
Ivy is not allowed to own shares in Telkom, or have any outside interests that might conflict her role as Minister of Communications. Any outside interests that she has, has to be declared. That is the case not just for the minister, but for every member of government. That is the law.

Whether there is something underhanded going on.... who knows? But any speculation is currently groundless.

It is just silly to have every discussion on this forum reduced to "explained by corruption". Doing so is like having your head stuck in the sand.
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The fatal flaw in your argument, is that you are assuming that guavamentals obey and respect the letter of the law, corruption is endemic in guavamental circles based on a spate of incidents of corruption, so the law is not obeyed and respected within guavamental circles, sure there are statistically likely to be some guavamentals that are not corrupt - perhaps even bcos they are not in a strategic position to commit fraud etc when their superiors are.

Ignoring the possibility that corruption is a major factor, is a really bad idea, and a lack of concrete evidence that there is no corruption, does not prove that there is no corruption, however there is strong circumstantial evidence in the lack of a Register of Members, that on its own suggests that corruption is a major factor.
 
Antowan, far be it for me to defend her Ivyness. I am hardly a fan.

On your list of 7 points, only number 6 shows a distinct lack of progress.

There are ICASA price controls, the ECA, LLU, Infraco, Neotel, Nepad, et al, none of which serve the purpose of enhancing Telkom's future profits. To Ivy, I believe it is far more important that a shareholder/beneficiary is black rather than related. Someone who looks like her, rather than actually being her. Incompetence, ideology, stubborness, and sloth, maybe. But corruption? What positive evidence is there?

But progress is way too slow.

The overiding problem we face is Telkom's control of wholesale bandwidth. We may see some relief when SAT-3 is wrested from Telkom's grasp. More likely, we will only see relief when additional cables come on line. We all know the history of how private enterprise ripped off the government in the privatisation of Telkom. We all know the history of how private enterprise ripped off the South African public after Telkom was privatised. We all know that the after effects are still felt today. There is little wonder, given her ideological background, that Ivy and the DoC has very little faith in the idea that private enterprise is going to rescue South Africa from the broadband desert it finds itself in.

The steps that the Minister and DoC have taken are generally good. But horribly slow. Yet slow is how everything happens in government. Especially when there are too many talk shops and too little action. When government does try to act quickly, they are usually outcries of steamroller-ing, or expedience. So all the i's have to get dotted and all the t's have to get cross. And all the consumers continue to get ripped off while waiting...

But corruption? Show me the evidence.

And the argument that if not senario A or B then senario C only holds in the absense of senarios D to Z. You cannot prove the presense of something (corruption) because of selective elimination of others things (incompetency and stupidity). There are many more factors involved here.

I just don't think it is useful to boil every news item down to corruption. It's a cop out. It gets more and more boring and less and less credible by the day. Threads are not debates any more, they have become competitions to find the most amusing and degrading insults to sling at the minister.

There are alternative views of government's actions out there. Few of which ever appear on this website. I'll leave you with one:

Lets not be narrowminded about broadband
 
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