New telecommunications dept to remain focused
Despite the continued reconfiguration of the new Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS), “things are not going to fall through the cracks”, DTPS director-general Rosey Sekese has assured Parliament.
Presenting the department’s strategic plan for 2014 to 2019, as well as its yearly performance plan for the 2014/15 financial year, to the Select Committee on Communications and Public Enterprises, she said the DTPS continued to work closely with the Department of Communications (DoC) pending the finalisation of transfer of functions.
This came as the department planned to table with Parliament a revised turnaround strategy reflecting its transformation, by September 17, when reconfiguration was expected to be completed.
Part of the department’s R1.59-billion budget allocation in the 2014/15 financial year would be transferred to the DoC as the reconfiguration process unbundled.
The Cabinet shake-up effected by President Jacob Zuma post his re-election in May, meant Ministries and departments were currently in the midst of transfers of functions and budgets – with a deadline of September 26 – undertaken by the Presidency, National Treasury, the DTPS, the DoC and the Department of Public Service and Administration, besides others.
However, the DTPS’s current plan, which was aligned with the National Development Plan, the 2014 to 2019 Medium-Term Strategic Framework, the State of the Nation Address and “available resources”, had identified strategic high-impact priorities, including the information and communication technology (ICT) policy review, broadband access, the cost to communicate and digital migration, besides others.
DTPS Deputy Minister Professor Hlengiwe Mkhize explained that some of the main priorities in the 2014/15 performance plan remained the publication of the draft National Integrated ICT Policy White Paper, the gazetting of an “e-Strategy” extending broadband penetration to 100%, the establishment of an ICT black economic-empowerment council and increasing the affordability of communication infrastructure.
To mitigate South Africa’s high cost to communicate, the DTPS would, this year, implement a second-phase programme to build on previous interventions, which had, to date, not produced sufficient reductions in communication costs.
Four identified interventions, namely issuing policy directives on pricing transparency and premium content, embarking on a study of national roaming and initiating a benchmarking study on mobile data pricing, would be accelerated to ensure price reduction, improved quality and expansion of services, DTPS State-owned companies’ oversight deputy director-general Sibongile Mokopi said.
The DTPS also planned to finalise regulations that introduce local-loop unbundling (LLU) this year.
“The LLU programme was largely concentrated in the infrastructure of telecoms. Since [the] DoC issued a policy directive in 2007, the market has evolved,” he said, suggesting the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa undertake a new study to assess the environment and examine the economic impacts of unbundling the local loop.
This would also focus on the wireless networks.
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