ICT charter stalls

Johannesburg, 29 Aug 2006

The ICT sector`s empowerment charter has been with government for a year, where it seems to have disappeared into obscurity.

Adrian Schofield, head of research at ForgeAhead, was a member of the committee tasked with drawing up the charter. He says the delay is a cause of frustration to all who worked on the charter.

Schofield believes the reason behind this inaction is the fragmented nature of the industry. This, he says, means there is no driving force behind finalising the charter.

About three years ago, a group of industry associations - in response to a call by the Department of Communications - formed an ICT empowerment charter working group.

This group, comprising 25 industry stakeholders, formed a task team to handle the "actual nuts and bolts" of developing a charter. This team, over a period of two years, developed the contents of the charter, Schofield explains.

At that stage, team members combined the needs of the sector with their understanding of guidelines provided by government. At the end of this period, the team received agreement from the working group on the charter.

Subsequently, the steering committee - before taking the document to government - required that aspects of the charter be realigned with the published Codes of Good Practice.

The realigned charter was presented to the Department of Communications and, believes Schofield, onwards to the Department of Trade and Industry. From there, it should have been published as a code. However, despite a year`s interval, nothing has happened.