Esteemed and honourable guests,
Officials of the Department and the State-Owned Companies,
Movers and shakers in the ICT industry,
Viewers and fellow South Africans,
Good Morning.
We are humbled by the opportunity to present ourselves to this important gathering and we thank all the viewers who have tuned in, as well as the participants and Information and communications technology (ICT) stakeholders who took their time to join us this morning.
We wish to thank The New Age and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) for this partnership that enables Government to speak and report directly to our people.
This breakfast briefing is happening at an opportune time, just a day after our nation celebrated the National Human Rights Day. As you would know, communications is not only an enabler of economic and social development; it is also a fundamental human right that features prominently in the bill of rights that is contained in our Constitution. All South Africans today enjoy equal rights, such as the freedom of the press and other media.
As the Department, we are committed to making communications services accessible, affordable and safe for all.
Our programme of action is aligned to the Government’s five key priorities of rural development, improving safety and security by fighting crime and corruption, improving the quality of health services, improving the quality of education and creating jobs.
In the current year, we have set ourselves specific priorities which are non-negotiable.
Our flagship projects include:
1. The rollout of broadband infrastructure
Our country has adopted a Broadband Policy which encourages facilities sharing as well as the promotion of the deployment of infrastructure for high speed internet broadband.
We intend deliver broadband in partnership with the private sector. We have a partnership compact signed with the ICT industry. Through it, we are working towards achieving 100% broadband penetration and creating at least one million jobs by 2020.
I must add that the partnership is so healthy that we shall be meeting with the industry later today.
2. Implementation of digital broadcasting migration policy
The migration to Digital TV means that people will get better quality pictures and sound and a wider content offering on their devises. Some of this new content will be educational and health related.
We are on course to launch Digital Migration in the third quarter of this year. The State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) like the SABC, Sentech, Universal Service and Access Agency of SA (Usaasa) will play a key role in assisting the department to deliver digital broadcasting in the country. Sentech has already achieved digital signal coverage of 60% of the population.
Tomorrow, we are launching our Digital terrestrial television (DTT) awareness with a teaser campaign. We seek to educate South Africans about what digital broadcasting means and the need for them to take action. This campaign will be done in a phased manner and will be rolled out in all the provinces.
It is important to note that Government has undertaken to subsidise the very poor television set owners when they acquire Set-Top-Boxes that are required to receive digital signal. Our estimates suggest that we would need to support about five million households. The value of the subsidy would be about R2.45 billion.
We also want to facilitate the entry of 1 000 SMMEs into the electronics manufacturing sector. These SMMEs would either compete or co-operate with existing and larger electronics manufacturers. The decoders will be manufactured locally.
3. ICT Policy Review and the enactment of White Paper on National ICT Policy
We are undertaking a comprehensive policy review process with respect to Broadcasting, Postal and Telecommunications legislation to position it to benefit the country for the next 20 years.
This process will also seek to strengthen our electronic communications and transaction policy against the cyber-criminals, including the protection of critical databases.
We have set aside the 19 to 20 April 2012 to host the ICT Policy Colloquium in Johannesburg. We call on the industry players and the public to work with us on this major Government-led initiative.
4. The hosting of the International ICT Indaba
We are hosting the first International ICT Indaba in Cape Town from 04 to 07 June 2012. Hosting the ICT Indaba is a bold message that we are sending out to the world that South Africa and the rest of the Continent are ready to be the next boom region for ICT services. Africa is a minefield of opportunities for communications services providers because it has a population that is estimated at one billion people, many of whom do not have access to affordable communications services.
We want the world to come to South Africa to share the global best practices and to also do business with the Continent. Our local talent as well as entrepreneurs from the continent will have an opportunity to showcase their best products and services to the world in the continent’s only regional ICT conference of this magnitude. This is a platform for our local multinationals to explore further opportunities across the continent and build on their business relations.
The ICT Indaba has also been endorsed by the International Telecommunications Union, giving it a truly and deserved international feel.
At the ICT Indaba, we shall work with other African countries to push the African ICT development agenda.
5. Cybersecurity
We now have a Cybersecurity Policy which paves the way for the establishment of the National Incident Response Team. This is a cyber-attacks mitigation centre that will help protect businesses, organisations and individuals from cybercrimes and cybercriminals.
This means that it is less likely that we could have a fraud similar to the one that took place at the Postbank earlier this year.
Ladies and gentlemen,
On Lowering the Cost to Communicate
We are committed to ensuring a continued regime of decreasing costs of communications in South Africa. We continue to monitor the implementation of the mobile termination rates through Icasa. We would like to see the cost of retails prices on broadband as well as fixed and mobile telephony being lowered further for the benefit of our consumers and to improve the country’s global competitiveness. We are expecting Icasa to promulgate regulations in this regard to promote more competition on retails prices.
Lowering the costs of communications would make our business process outsourcing industry more competitive.
Schools and rural areas connectivity
Schools connectivity is high on the agenda of the Government. Deputy Minister Ms Stella Ndabeni is leading this initiative and is working with the departments of Basic Education and Science and Technology. Today and tomorrow, she is in the Eastern Cape to open two i-Labs. Over the next few weeks she would be going to Mpumalanga and then KwaZulu-Natal, were 80 schools are expected to be connected to the internet.
We are inviting the private operators to do more in this regard. The private sector must take advantage of the Electronic Communications Act provisions on the e-Rate dispensation and give schools 50% discount as required by the law.
Fellow citizens,
Job creation
Government can’t create the jobs that the economy needs on its own. We anticipate that our facilitation of the electronics manufacturing sector will create 23 500 direct jobs. SMME development and employment through ICT Centres will be delivered through Usaasa. We anticipate that other jobs could come from installation, logistics and distribution, repairs and maintenance of the decoders. Creative industries, particularly content production, could grow significantly and create jobs.
We are embarking on skills development by rolling out a training program for set-top-box related skills especially installation, repair and maintenance training through the National Electronic Media Institute of SA (Nemisa).
Corporate governance
We have set out to ensure the stability of all SOEs reporting to the department. We are doing this to ensure proper corporate governance.
As we promised in January, we have been able to appoint senior executives and filled vacant board positions in our SOEs.
The board of the SA Post Office will now focus on searching for a Chief Executive Officer and other senior executive positions that are vacant.
The forensic investigation that we undertook at Usaasa has been completed. We are busy implementing decisions that were necessitated by the outcomes of the investigation.
International relations and trade
We have just returned from the ITU World Radiocommunications Conference where we made several decisions impacting positively on the future growth of the ICT sector. We also participated in Universal Postal Union Congress and the GSMA Mobile World Congress in February 2012. We will soon be hosting the SADC ICT Ministers meeting to further our processes of regional harmonisation of ICT policies.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Allow me to invite you to work with us as we action our priorities with speed, to achieve results that deliver ICT services to our people.
Thank you.
Ends.
Speech by Minister, Ms Dina Pule, At the breakfast hosted by New Age and SABC, Hilton Hotel, Sandton
