Obed Bapela, communications driver

Telkom's strategy is to be questioned, social networking is good, the Department of Communications needs to be rebuilt and SA will stick with its original choice of digital TV standard.

These were some of the points deputy communications minister Obed Bapela brought up in his first discussion with ITWeb yesterday.

It was also his first media interaction since president Jacob Zuma announced his appointment to the post two weeks ago.

Bapela, 52, while well known within Parliament and political circles, is a relatively unknown personality to the broader ICT sector. As chairman of the Parliamentary House Committees, his focus was on the business of the legislature.

He did, however, champion the increased use of ICT by the politicians and raised eyebrows when he said 85% of the MPs were computer illiterate and could not use the issued laptops. Bapela also interacted with other parliaments around the world about how IT could best be used to enhance legislative processes.

“I must say I could not agree with the ANC Youth League's statement that [social networking site] Twitter should be closed. Yes, people should be protected from slander and harm, but you cannot close down a service that is used by 120 million people.”

Bapela says social media sites, if used properly, could help encourage debate, get politicians' views across, and stimulate awareness of issues.

“I have said many times that very few politicians have the opportunity to address a crowd as large as one would find in, say, the FNB stadium. On a social networking site, one can easily address a crowd as large as 120 000 people and also get comment from politicians in other countries who are dealing with similar issues,” he says.

Understanding the use of media to get views across and to mobilise people comes naturally to Bapela. He was an organiser in Alexander Township, in the north of Johannesburg, during the turbulent 1980s, when he found himself imprisoned and charged with treason a number of times.

Although his studies were interrupted, he managed to train as a reporter and photographer first, at an NGO run by now professor of journalism at Rhodes University, Guy Berger, and later as a cadet reporter with the Weekly Mail (now the Mail & Guardian). His classmate in the latter was Ferial Haffajee, now editor-in-chief of City Press, and the intake ahead of him had current SABC news head Phil Molefe.

Bapela served on the Gauteng Provincial Legislature until 2002 when he became a Member of Parliament.

Deputy ministers hold a strange position within government. They are not members of Cabinet and their position is not constitutionally mandated. Their effectiveness depends strongly on the relationship they have with their minister and the public service department head, usually called the director-general.

“Yes this is true. But the deputy minister sits on the cabinet committees that process matters before they appear at Cabinet. That is actually a very powerful role, because those committees can block things if they feel necessary,” Bapela says.

“A deputy minister, in many ways, is a driver for the minister. It is the deputy who deals with the bureaucrats and technocrats who implement policy to ensure a certain gravitas is present; it is the deputy minister who visits communities who benefit from government work and then they realise they are being taken seriously; and the deputy minister also has to support the minister in meeting his performance agreement.”

Bapela and his minister Roy Padayachie have been working together to develop a strategy to lift the siege the DOC finds itself under, and to deal with the myriad other issues that all demand equal attention. In December, they plan to announce their division of tasks.

South Africa's position is to reaffirm cabinet's original commitment to the European (DVB-T) standard.

Obed Bapela, deputy communications minister, Department of Communications

Sorting out the DOC is a major issue and a prime issue. The turmoil of the past year has seen many of its key staff leave and the vacancy rate is around 30%. Parliament's communications committee issued a damning statement describing the DOC as being virtually dysfunctional.

“The staff of the DOC are very pro the recent changes. Their morale has increased and I see a 'team DOC is on the rise'; there are also very capable and experienced people still within the department,” Bapela notes.

Padayachie and Bapela plan to present their DOC revival strategy to Parliament in January.

As far as the state-owned-entities such as the SABC and Sentech are concerned, Bapela says the message to them now is to revisit their original mandates and then focus on their core businesses.

“Sentech is now cash positive and doesn't need to go to government for more money. The SABC is still an issue and we are looking into it,” he says.

The third entity of concern is telecommunications regulator ICASA, and Bapela wants it to become more responsive to dealing with matters in a reasonable time.

Bapela believes his experience in international affairs would also benefit the DOC and the country at large. South Africa now sits on the plenary board of the International Telecommunications Union, African Internet number registry for Africa, and is leading the SA Development Community's communications ministers' forum. The latter is due to meet in December to consider digital TV broadcasting standards.

The broadcasting sector was thrown into turmoil earlier this year when the DOC seemed to be seriously entertaining the implementation of the Japanese/Brazilian ISDB standard halfway through the transition from analogue to digital, with the switchover supposed to be finalised by 1 November 2011.

“South Africa's position is to reaffirm Cabinet's original commitment to the European (DVB-T) standard. It was a good thing that we did broaden the debate as it showed that South Africa was prepared to discuss the issue and not be a bully,” he says.

Bapela says a pronouncement will be made early next year on the issue.

What Bapela likes about the digital TV migration is its ability to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor, urban and rural and young and old. But it is one of a number of strategies to do this - broadband rollout is another.

“What we have to do is finalise a broadband policy, turn it into law, develop the regulations and then strategise how to implement it,” he says.

Skills development is another plan. Bapela wants to see the DOC-led cross-department committees on ICT skills development rejuvenated after having been in hiatus for some time. This includes the development of e-citizen, e-worker and e-learning.

“What we need to do is synergise the workings of Telkom, Sentech, and Broadband Infraco,” he says.

Bapela is upset that the e-rate, the right for schools to receive a 50% discount on their cost of connectivity as made law in the Electronic Communications Act, is not being implemented. The major problem is that Internet service providers that supply such connectivity do not receive a similar wholesale discount, particularly from Telkom, which dominates that part of the market.

“Telkom's original strategy when they listed (2002) was that they would expand into Africa and get 40% of their revenue from there and the rest from South Africa. However, that strategy has failed - look at what happened in Nigeria - and so they now get 95% of their revenue from South Africa. South Africa is their cash cow and they do not want to meddle with that.”

Bapela says government, which owns 39.5% of Telkom's shares and has the right to appoint the board, will want an explanation of that.

Speculation is rife about the future of Broadband Infraco. Although the company plays within the DOC's centre of influence, it is a creation of, and falls under, the umbrella of the Department of Public Enterprises.

“Yes, there has been some idea of Sentech and Broadband Infraco merging, but there have been no formal discussions around that yet,” Bapela says.