Shope-Mafole sticks to her guns

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Cape Town, 27 Sep 2007

Department of Communications director-general Lyndall Shope-Mafole is confident allegations of fraud at the department are false and says she is proud of its work and people.

Speaking to ITWeb yesterday, Shope-Mafole said the allegations of fraud and "job piracy" made to the Public Service Commission (PSC) were false. She noted that she had sat on every interview conducted for the appointment of senior people and the process was above dispute.

"The PSC is welcome to meet with us, myself and the minister [Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri] and investigate the matter. However, we cannot respond to allegations that come from anonymous sources. Despite my open door policy, people have decided to use other routes to air their grievances."

Guiding issues

Last week, Cabinet re-appointed Shope-Mafole for a second three-year term. She originally took up the position in September 2004, almost one year after previous director-general Andile Ngcaba left to take up his current position as chairman of Dimension Data SA.

Apart from dealing with the fraud allegations, Shope-Mafole's department also has to handle a number of other issues. Many of these are policy-related and some are directly related to improving the country's economic performance.

Her two guiding policy issues are: firstly, to increase the use of ICT in the country, and secondly, to use ICT to lower the cost of doing business.

The first issue is one that she is personally keen on. The second issue is closely related to government's macro-economic plan to increase gross domestic product growth to 6% a year, as encapsulated in the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative for SA.

On the direct policy on the implementation side of the department's business, Shope-Mafole has to oversee the amendment to the Electronic Communications (EC) Act. This will enable direct state intervention in the telecommunications sector, allowing for the speedy licensing of broadband infrastructure provider Infraco.

Responsibilities

There is also the development of guidelines for the landing of undersea cables, and the realisation of the Nepad ICT Broadband Infrastructure Network (NBIN) to connect east African countries through a terrestrial and undersea cable network.

Another responsibility is protecting government's shareholder rights and interests in Telkom, Sentech, the SA Post Office and the SA Broadcasting Corporation, plus a number of other minor institutions.

Despite the high workload and reports that her department is operating at less than 40% capacity, Shope-Mafole believes the employees are doing a sterling job.

"I am really proud of my team. They work well together and they have achieved international recognition for some of their work. For instance, the EC Act is considered a leader in telecommunications the world over," she said.

As for lowering the cost of telecommunications, Shope-Mafole believes government-led projects, such as NBIN, is the route to go, but with a strong private sector investment. This extends to issues such as allowing international consortium Seacom to land its planned cable in SA.

Nothing unusual

"I don't see what is so unusual about insisting that a cable being landed here must be majority owned by South African companies. Almost every other country in the world has similar requirements for landing cables."

Shope-Mafole would only say the undersea cable landing guidelines would be ready "soon".

She is also adamant that the NBIN project will succeed, despite its seeming lack of progress. Her department is readying itself for a conference to be held on the issue within the next month.

"For the Nepad project to succeed, we need three kinds of investors: the government-led special purpose vehicles (the organisations that will run the project), African investors, and international investors."