Mbeki's ICT tale

President Thabo Mbeki's Dickensian state of the nation address has left the ICT sector wanting more, because - although it is food for thought - it smacks of cold gruel in the poor house.

Very few people were expecting substantial policy announcements in this year's State of the Nation address. A president who is no longer the leader of his party is not expected to make any major policy changes, in fact, it does not seem that he has a mandate to do so.

The country is also facing some turbulence in terms of political uncertainty, an economy that is wobbling due to the electricity crisis and the international situation, and the reality of meeting objectives of eradicating poverty and ensuring that everyone is included.

So the cost of doing business is on the forefront of Mbeki's mind. The lower the cost, the more investment and the more people are employed, meaning fewer who need state assistance and the self worth of a person is increased through earning and being a valuable contributor to the economy.

For the first time in four years, Mbeki made no mention of Asgisa

Paul Vecchiatto, Cape Town Correspondent, ITWeb

Government's response to meeting the challenges of growing the economy and alleviating poverty since 2004 has been the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative for SA (Asgisa), which has been spearheaded by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

This strategy has been characterised by so-called "special interventions" that are supposed to kick start investment and employment in certain sectors, one of them being the call centre industry and others being in public works and infrastructure development.

For the first time in four years, Mbeki made no mention of Asgisa. This implies that it is no longer the overall economic policy or that it is bunk as it has failed to meet expectations and therefore was not in touch with reality.

Governments that develop a very hierarchal and central decision-making process, as this one has done, rely heavily on statistics to plan and to justify their policies and these policies have borne very little fruit.

South African consumers, and small businesses, still pay some of the highest rates for telephone calls in the world. This despite the policy announcements made by Mbeki last year where he singled out Telkom.

Although telecommunications costs are supposed to be declining, they are not. The following table compiled by independent telecommunications costs analysis firm Dataroom (www.dataroom.co.za) shows this:

So, while large companies are able to get far cheaper rates, the ordinary person still has to bear the brunt of high costs. This is especially the case for the poor, who are the most heavily dependent on the most expensive form of communications, namely prepaid cellular.

This illustrates that, while the concept of "development economics and the development state" have been propounded as the way to ensure economic growth, the fact is that they have not to date benefited the ordinary small business on which the economy relies for growth and employment.

And for the first time in four years Mbeki has totally ignored the issues of affordability, access and what is to be done about it. In fact, his comments on ICT seem to be completely disjointed.

International connectivity is another part of the equation. President Mbeki announced that government would be going ahead with undersea cables and that these will be part of the commitment to meet the country's 2010 World Soccer Cup guarantees.

But the electricity crisis could upset this plan. Government will have to extend funding to Eskom, potentially leaving Infraco languishing and placing pressure on the private sector to take up the slack. He doesn't even say what Infraco is supposed to do.

National signal distributor Sentech, which has been government's own Oliver Twist, has received very little of the funding needed to implement an ambitious digital migration strategy and to maintain its existing -and aging - infrastructure. Now it is expected to get half the population covered with digital TV. It will also become a wholesale wireless Internet provider.

Considering Sentech's inability to really make a go of its MyWireless service over the past six years and its funding constraints, one can only wonder who fed this to the President. President Mbeki has correctly pointed out that IT is an enabler, however, implementation of IT strategies are not just dependent on getting the right technology and the skilled people, but sound business and organisational models. At the moment, these do not exist.

We are still waiting for the Department of Home Affairs turn-around strategy to run its course and the criminal justice system is so politically charged that it is unlikely that IT will help.

If government policy and its implementation seems to have been muddied in the past, it looks set to be increasingly so.