Telecoms liberalisation plan soon

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Cape Town, 22 Jun 2004

Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri will release details and a timetable of further liberalisation of the SA telecommunications sector, "in the coming months".

The minister made this announcement in Parliament yesterday afternoon during the Department of Communication`s budget vote speech.

Matsepe-Casaburri said the study on the market structure of the telecommunications sector made recommendations on a number of issues, including the need for policy directives to allow for voice over Internet Protocol, the reselling of spare capacity by public telephone networks, self-provisioning by the mobile operators and service-based competition.

Neither the minister nor her deputy Radhakrishna "Roy" Padayachee, who made his maiden speech in support of the department`s budget vote, made any further statements on that topic.

According to Padayachee, the department held a strategic planning workshop that took its direction from President Thabo Mbeki`s State of the Nation address and the Cabinet`s own strategic vision.

This workshop helped to refine the department`s mandate to "create a favourable ICT environment that ensures that SA has the capacity to advance its socio-economic development goals, to support the renewal of Africa and to create a better world".

He says the department`s vision is to be a global leader in harnessing information and communications technologies for socio-economic development.

Padayachee says the department`s strategic thrusts in the ICT sector will be to transform and democratise it; to create appropriate conditions for the managed liberalisation of the sector; to ensure universality and affordability of ICT services to the people; and to ensure access to updated and latest technological innovations in the sector and the modernising of the ICT infrastructure in the country.

In her speech, Matsepe-Casaburri listed a number of Department of Communications projects, including the 112 emergency telephone service, the awarding of underserviced area access licences, the deployment of an additional 50 e-school cyberlabs before the end of the current financial year, and the establishment of the Batho-Pele government portal, which aims to promote social cohesion.