Thank you Programme Director, Jeremy Maggs
Hon. Richard Randibisoa, Minister of Public Security, Madagascar
Hon. Haji Omar Kheri, Minister of State, President's Office - Regional Administration and Special Departments, Zanzibar, Tanzania
The Honourable Mmamoloko Kubayi, Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on DTPS in Parliament
Li Peng, President of Huawei in the Eatern and Southrn Africa Region
Your Excellency, Rong Yansong, Economic and Commercial Counselor in the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in South Africa
Directors and Executives of various industries in the ICT sector
Senior government officials present,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to welcome you all to the beautiful City of Cape Town and request you to feel free to join us as we celebrate 21 years of freedom from colonial and apartheid oppression. We honour our heroes who paid the highest sacrifice for us to be free. We are deeply indebted to the international community for their solidarity in our struggles for liberation.
Programme Director
I am humbled and honoured to address you this morning at this historic Safe Cities Africa Summit as we explore means through which ICT’s can better the lives of our citizens. The safety and security of our homes, businesses and communities is fundamental in improving the lives of all citizens. The Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) revolution is with us and must be embraced to advance humanity.
The concept of smart cities is foundation for safe cities. It entails the modernisation of our city life and security of inhabitants using digital platforms. This ecoystem is composed of interconnected microsystems such as smart government, smart energy, smart building, smart mobility, smart infrastructure, smart technology, smart healthcare and smart citizens. The system provides us with solutions that help us integrate, analyse and manage information resources that are used by government agencies to obtain incident information for prompt response.
The benefits of these intelligent surveillance includes reducing blind spots and behaviour analysis through video analysis, video location and video retrieval to enhance case analysis. The surveillance functions such as behavior analysis, facial recognition video location, video quality diagnosis, etc. will enable us to enhance work efficiency. These solutions assist us to ultimately develop a secure, stable and efficient socio-economic environment that contributes to sustainable development of our people.
Smart Cities cannot be complete without broadband infrastructure in those cities, particularly backhaul capacity and the last mile connectivity to institutions, centres of business, individual homes, city networks, public spaces and most importantly people equipped to operate these services.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We must embrace the reality of the "Internet of Things" where the growing connectivity to people and machine-to-machine facilitates modern life in society.
African Colleagues and fellow South Africans,
Failure is not an option for our developing nations as it will marginalise us from global information society that drives prosperity of contemporary nations.
In 2012 South Africa adopted our 2030 Vision, the National Development Plan that positions telecommunications services, particularly ubiquitous broadband at the centre of the develoment of an inclusive information society that will propel economic growth and human progress. In December 2013, we adopted our broadband policy, South Africa Connect, which has relatively high internet speed targets which strive to provide basic ubiquitous broadband connectivity to all South Africans by 2020, and scale up to even higher speeds by 2030. This will require massive investment in fibre and last mile connectivity infrastructure that is estimated to be over a hundred billion rands. After in depth planning, 2015 marks the beginning of the implementation of our broadband policy.
His Excellency, President J.G. Zuma announced in his State of the Nation Address 8 districts municipalities where we will pilot the rollout to be concluded by 2017. At the same time we are finalising the plans for rolling out infrastructure for the rest of the country from 2016 to 2020. We are stimulating demand by implementing e-government through connecting all government offices. The government on its own will not succeed on this enormous challenge, but will require private sector to invest in the connectivity and the local production of equipment and technologies to drive employment and growth.
This financial year we will finalise our comprehensive ICT Policy Review. Last week I received a report from the panel of experts that were soliciting inputs on the ICT Review from South Africans. Among numerous useful recommendations, to name the few, South Africans have suggested that we may no longer afford the duplication of ICT infrastructure only in major cities, but we must utilise full capacity of the current infrastructure by adopting an open access network policy and promote investment in underserved areas. We received input that we must develop a rapid deployment policy to remove bottlenecks by municipal authorities in the roll-out of broadband services. We have been advised we must consider moving away from competition in infrastructure to competition in service. We have been requested, by South Africans to facilitate private sector investment and promote small businesses and job creation that prioritises participation of the most vulnerable groups such as the youth, women and the disabled in our economy. We have received an affirmation that the ICT sector must embrace transformation and empower those who were oppressed by apartheid, our black people in general and Africans in particular.
As we build these safe city networks we must assure and instil confidence in our people that they are safe and and secured from abuse by the criminals and terrorists. We do not need havoc makers, instead we must mobilise everyone to join us as cyber-soldiers to defend our information space. The Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services calls upon our businesses and civil society to to join us and share experiences as we develop the National Cybersecurity Hub and advising citizens about safe use of these digital platforms. The purpose of the Safe Cities is to enhance the safety and development of society while actively isolating those with devient behaviour and criminals.
Fellow Africans,
The ANC and it's government is concerned by the loss of life of our own citizens and of foreign nationals due recent incidence of violent attacks and looting we have witnessed in some parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. We strongly condemm this violence and displacement of foreign nationals because it is against our values of UBUNTU and AFRICAN SOLIDARITY.
We understand the frustrations experienced by the poorer sections our society that are rooted in the profound and lasting impact of colonial apartheid oppression and dispossession that has condemned black people in general and Africans in particular, to persistent poverty, inequality and unemployment. This has resulted in massive migration from rural and poor areas to major urban areas in search of opportunities, jobs and a search for better life. This migration happens within the country, throughout Africa and to the rest of the world. The solution lies in requires radical economic transformation, not only in South Africa but the African continent and the developing world. South Africa as a relatively small global economy cannot bear the yoke of colonialism alone. It requires regional integration and industrialisation in order to create jobs across the African continent and indeed in the developing world.
As the South African government we have heard the plight of the poor people and we are responding. President Zuma announced during the State of the Nation Address a nine point plan to drive economic growth and Job creation. The people of South Africa are saying yes to job creation and no to persistent poverty. They are welcoming free movement of Africans and saying no to criminality including illegal migration. They are saying yes to decent human settlements and no to slums. They are saying yes job creating investments and no to exploitation and illegal business. They are saying yes to the respect of societal values, rules and laws and no devient behavior that does not foster mutual respect and social cohesion. They are saying yes to unity, international solidarity and African values of UBUNTU and NO TO XENOPHOBIA. We are one people, we are African. There is no amount of frustration that can justify the brutal acts of violence we have witnessed in past weeks.
As we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, government is sending a strong message that intolerance, regardless how it manifests itself will not be tolerated. The Freedom Charter is resolute in that there shall be work and security for all in South Africa.
We recognise and appreciate Huawei as an international strategic partner for the development of ICTs in South Africa and the African continent in support of African Union Agenda 2063. We thank Huawei for holding this Safe Cities Forum, a good platform for the ICT and security industry to come together to discuss how to use ICT technology to build a Safe City. In current modern cities, public safety is the primary requirement and we can use the latest technology to elevate our ability to perceive threats to the city and provide sophisticated approaches to command control, communication and data computing technologies as we leverage intelligent analysis and provide a visual, multi - faceted view of the city's safety systems to reduce crime and create a more secure environment for business, tourism and living.
As a long term contributor to Africa, Huawei has made a lot of efforts to building a better connected world and to bring the new safe city technology and solutions. We thank Huawei for your ICT knowledge transfer and look forward to more opportunities for cooperation as we improve the development of ICT's.
Huawei must continue to partner with African governments in creating safe cities and deploying ICT infrastructure and smart solutions to ensuring that our cities are safe as we leverage on these digital technologies to ensure an improved quality of life.
I look forward to the outcomes of this conference as we work towards ensuring universal access of broadband services for the creation of a vibrant information society.
I thank you.
