Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies has summoned the Department’s Minister Solly Malatsi to appear before the committee to provide a comprehensive explanation on the recently gazetted policy directives that seeks to relax black economic empowerment (BEE) policies in the ICT sector.
The move is seen by many as aiming to open the door for US billionaire Elon Musk’s international satellite company, Starlink, to operate in South Africa.
The Committee Chairperson Khusela Sangoni-Diko told Newsnote that they have decided to call the Minister to explain the directives that appear to be in contravention of the Electronic Communications Act and in favour of low earth orbit satellite provider SpaceX.
She said the role of parliament is to exercise oversight on the work of the executive, which means that as the government does its work, the committee must ensure that it is done within the laws of the country.
“As the portfolio committee we are concerned about policy directives that have been issued by Minister Malatsi.
They seem to be in contravention of the electronic communications Act which says that to have a license in telecommunications industry you must be 30% Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) compliant or at least 30% equity ownership by historically disadvantaged persons.
We’ve called Minister Malatsi to Parliament to explain this contradiction and to also expand on why he would think that it is necessary to do this for an individual company and to appease a single person or a single company’s interest,” said Sangoni-Diko.
Meanwhile, the Minister has defended his action, highlighting that their objectives are meant to give effect to existing national and sector policy pertaining to the rollout of broadband and bridging the digital divide.
“This was necessary to encourage investment, including strategic infrastructure investment, and innovation in the communications sector, to promote competition within the ICT sector and to promote, facilitate and harmonise the achievement of the objectives of law,” read a statement from Malatsi.
He further rebutted the claims that the gazette was influenced by the recent meeting between President Cyril Ramaphosa and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Washington D.C., on Wednesday.
“This has absolutely nothing to do with the recent official visit by the President to Washington.
We initiated the processes in the final quarter of last year where the process for a policy directive starts at the very elementary level with a letter to the broadcasting regulator, Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) which we wrote last year around September, October.
We expressed an intention to do a policy direction and then as the process requires, ICASA required sometime to compile their response which we then considered and wrote back to them saying having considered your reasons and the intention of the policy direction we will be proceeding,” explained Malatsi in the statement.
Political parties in Parliament including EFF, MK Party and the ATM amongst others have already vowed to challenge the policy.
