Note to editors: The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by the DA’s Shadow Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services, Cameron Mackenzie MP, during the Budget Vote on Telecommunications and Postal Services.
Thank you House Chairperson,
The time for talking is past.
Telecommunications has moved far beyond making a phone call or sending a SMS. Budget speeches this year have been littered with talk of the fourth industrial revolution and e-government – a good indicator of how far technology has taken us since the birth of the internet and the rollout of fast, ubiquitous broadband.
The fourth industrial revolution – digitisation, automation and the internet of things – is already with us, changing the way the world lives, works and plays.
E-government and its ability to connect citizens with government, business with government, and government with government, is a game changer in how government interacts and communicates – more efficiently, more effectively and at a lower cost.
There is broad agreement across all political parties that inequality is one of the biggest challenges facing South Africa and our people. A growing economy creates jobs and opportunities and a job is a pathway out of poverty but job creation depends entirely on economic growth.
Few economic sectors have the power to directly contribute as much and as quickly to economic growth than Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – and broadband specifically. World Bank research shows that every 10% increase in broadband penetration could contribute an extra 1.38% to the economic growth rate for low and middle income countries. And at 1.38%, that’s double the pedestrian 0.6% economic growth projected for South Africa this year.
Given this fact, we would expect this government and the Department to lead the way in the rollout of broadband and the implementation of e-government in South Africa.
Yet, with a national budget of more than a trillion rand, less than R1.7 billion has been allocated to Telecommunications and Postal Services. This seems comparatively little for a sector that has so much potential to contribute to our country’s economic growth.
So how is the Department doing?
Let’s use the Department’s own goals (pun intended) to gauge this.
In the Department’s Annual Performance Plan, it aims to:
• Expand and modernise ICT infrastructure by implementing the South Africa Connect broadband policy (that’s a fail);
• Coordinate the migration to digital broadcasting (that’s a fail – missed deadlines included);
• Implement the legislative framework stemming from the 2016 National Integrated ICT Policy White Paper (we’re going to be waiting until next year for this); and
• Rationalise state-owned companies (fail – three years later and there’s lots of talk but little action).
The Department is seized with discussing the ICT White Paper, e-government, digital strategies and the mythical SA Connect. The problem is not for want of policies, statements or intentions though; we are awash with these.
The problem is lots of talking and little implementation.
Two of the Department’s Annual Performance Plan priorities for 2017/2018 are the finalisation and approval of the National E-strategy and the e-government strategy.
But they’ve been paying lip service to the concept of e-government for decades. And it’s not me who says this – it’s government itself.
In the proposed national e-government strategy, published in the Government Gazette of 7 April, on page 495, it says “Existing e-government policy and strategies have played lip service over time which led to outdated approaches as well as the fact that South Africa has not moved forward in achieving the strategic objectives as set in the 2001 e-Government policy.”
Sixteen years later and the government is still talking more but doing less. In this regard, time is the enemy and South Africa is losing the battle.
A recent Parliamentary oversight to Mpumalanga provides a useful clue as to why we are so far behind. According to information supplied by the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA), as part of SA Connect, several clinics, schools and government offices had been connected to a broadband network designed and built by MENG, a Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) start-up. When we visited the sites, with the exception of a single clinic, no connectivity existed and the network infrastructure was vandalized and not maintained. Yet the government had paid around R30 million for connectivity that doesn’t exist.
It is important to contrast this with another connectivity programme in this country that’s rolling out government services and internet access to our citizens – and its right here, in the DA-governed Western Cape.
The Western Cape Broadband Strategy and Implementation Plan aims to coordinate and integrate government action to radically improve the provision of telecommunication infrastructure, skills and usage within the province so every citizen in every town and village has access to affordable high-speed broadband infrastructure and services, has the necessary skills to be able to effectively utilise this infrastructure and is actively utilising this in their day-to-day lives.
And this is not lip service.
This province has brought together the public sector in the form of the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), Neotel from the private sector and the Western Cape government itself in a 10 year, R3.6 billion self-funded programme that is contributing to the provision of affordable, ubiquitous broadband to meet the diverse needs of public and private users.
And it’s working.
The Western Cape is ready for the fourth industrial revolution. It is rolling out broadband and e-government services. It is paying more than lip service to these concepts. But where is national government and where are the other provinces?
It is three years since the illogical, irrational and unnecessary split of Communications and Telecommunications. Who can fathom the inner workings of the President’s mind? (Although a letter writer to Business Day suggested the President is still running on Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) while everyone else is running Windows 10…)
Three years later and this Department and its programmes are still wracked by underperformance, lack of delivery, policy confusion and worse still, policy implementation.
This government is not just running out of other people’s money, it’s running out of time.
The fourth industrial revolution, e-government and the broadband network that underpins it has the power to effect positive change on a scale sorely needed by this country. But for this to happen, fast, reliable and universal broadband and access to it must be in place, because unless you’ve built the foundation, you cannot deliver the future. The revolution won’t wait for South Africa to catch up. It needs to be done and done now because the time for lip service has passed.
Let me leave you with a piece of advice from Walt Disney:
“The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.”