DOC must explain itself

The Department of Communications (DOC) must explain why it should continue to exist and therefore receive public monies, rather than being told to go away and sort itself out.

A parliamentary committee describes the government department as being “...in a state of virtual disarray, if not wholly dysfunctional”. So the time has come for all taxpayers to ask why they should continue to fund a government organisation that has so obviously failed to meet whatever was expected of it.

It is no state secret that the DOC is a disaster. For years the signs of institutionalised bullshit have been building up, as its representatives have appeared time and again before elected representatives to spin one excuse after another on why it could not achieve its tasks, and then sidetracking whatever issue was being questioned with some other grand scheme or vision.

For years I have seen DOC officials testify before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications that all was in order in the department, that it was providing leadership to the ICT sector, that it was “seized” (a very commonly used term) with ensuring SA would continue to be a world leader in telecommunications and technology.

It very aptly deflected questions about the state of the migration process from analogue to digital TV broadcasting systems; it constantly assured that SA would meet its 2010 Soccer World Cup guarantees (it did not, Sentech did not commission its second satellite teleport at Nasrec); that it would promote some fantastical scheme to ring the continent with a fibre-optic undersea cable in time for the World Cup (more like undersea pipe dream); and that it would run a fibre-optic network through the spine of Africa.

It is no state secret that the DOC is a disaster.

Paul Vecchiatto, Cape Town correspondent

An old saying is: “A fish rots from the head down.” If it is true, no wonder the organisations within the DOC's portfolio are in disarray. I was there when the SABC said it had run up a debt of R1 billion, and saw the look of surprise on the DOC officials' faces even though they had been aware of this for some time. Sentech's own woes have grown worse, despite the DOC 'facilitating' some kind of intervention, and the Universal Service and Access Agency of SA can't even enforce a connectivity discount for schools.

If the regulator ICASA was not so much in the public eye, I daresay it would be in an equal state, and, to be perfectly frank, I am surprised I could buy stamps at the SA Post Office (although that organisation does seem to be ticking along nicely).

Parliament's own oversight committee must share some of the blame. Over the years I have only come across two MPs who have really tried to take on the DOC. The first was Dene Smuts of the Democratic Alliance, and the other has been Eric Kholwane (ANC), who identified a leadership problem at the department as early at 2005, if not before.

Now the MPs are beginning to question the DOC's very existence. Comments have been made as to why it should exist, and perhaps its portfolio organisations should be transferred, maybe, to the Department of Public Enterprises, and some form of Presidential commission should be formed to handle broadcasting and telecommunications affairs.

What was the DOC's reply? Oh, it will hold a “colloquium” to work out where the DOC and the country should be in 10 years' time. When I pressed the department on this afterwards, it could not say where or when (“sometime late November, maybe first week of December”) and then insisted that only the right people would be there.

In other words, another bullshit answer that was suddenly dreamt up to deflect criticism.

Now the committee is “gravely concerned”, and gave the DOC 10 things to do before the end of the year. Well, this is like telling a truant school child to be back in class in time for the matric exams.

DOC acting director-general Harold Wesso has described the department as a “sinking ship...but it has not yet hit the bottom”.

I know this about sinking ships - that when the water is over the bow and lapping around the amidships, the stern is high in the air and the propellers are spinning uselessly, then it is too late to launch the lifeboats, it is time to start jumping.