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One year on: DTPS mired by lack of action

Bonnie Tubbs
By Bonnie Tubbs, ITWeb telecoms editor.
Johannesburg, 26 May 2015
The building blocks are in place for the DTPS to do great things, all that is needed is action.
The building blocks are in place for the DTPS to do great things, all that is needed is action.

Less talk and words on paper and more action. This is what the industry is calling for from SA's Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS), which has just turned one.

The past year in ICT has seen much discussion and a number of policy statements and frameworks - but has been deprived of any implementation or action, say industry watchers.

This time last year, president Jacob Zuma had just jolted the ICT industry with an announcement that the telecoms and IT ministry - then the Department of Communications (DOC) - would be split in two.

The DTPS was placed under former spy boss Siyabonga Cwele, while the "new" DOC (incorporating government's communications agency, state broadcaster and ICT industry regulator) was handed to a former municipal manager who had previously been the subject of corruption accusations, Faith Muthambi.

The move has been harshly criticised as taking an already beleaguered ministry backwards and sowing confusion. Today - a year down the line - critics remain unforgiving, saying Cwele and the DTPS have failed to deliver much beyond words.

Deputy telecoms and postal services minister Hlengiwe Mkhize has acknowledged the department faces challenges and setbacks - many of which she says were "inherited" from the former DOC - and says the DTPS is tackling these, one by one. She cites e-skills and rural connectivity as two of the areas in which the department has made headway over the past year.

In the mire

ICT expert Adrian Schofield says the DTPS is mired because of a "lack of skills, lack of management, low motivation and no political will".

"It is apparent from the minister's speeches and statements that he and his advisers know the words that are expected of them but they appear to be incapable of translating words into action."

The Media Corner deal

In February last year, Wisani Ngobeni, a spokesperson for former communications minister Dina Pule, lodged documents in the Johannesburg Labour Court, as part of an application for indemnity from disciplinary action related to the Media Corner deal.
The documents exposed alleged irregular payments to the company. Here are the salient points:
* The three-year contract was signed in 2012 by the DOC.
* Between October 2012 and November 2013, Media Corner submitted 15 invoices for an amount of R60.9 million.
* Between April 2013 and January 2014, R40.7 million was allegedly paid to Media Corner.
* Deputy DG Sam Vilakazi and his personal assistant allegedly facilitated irregular payments by authorising the issuing of a series of purchase orders.
* Sekese signed several contracts with Media Corner and an associate company, without a proper bidding process, and without the department having sufficient budget.
* In February 2014, president Jacob Zuma ordered an SIU probe into the deal, prompted by Ngobeni's submission.

Schofield says SA is going backwards in terms of adopting technology to support and fuel the economic and social growth it deserves. "We had (maybe still have) the springboard from which to leap forward but the complete failure of the government to make and implement the right policies to take advantage of the springboard are condemning SA to endure decades of unnecessary poverty."

Last week, delivering the budget vote speech in Parliament, Cwele's words failed to impress market watchers, who said many of the initiatives he raised should have been completed "years ago".

World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck - who is also a member of the National Broadband Advisory Committee - says the industry has "heard a lot of talk but not yet seen any delivery".

From the outside, he says, there does not appear to be any movement since the departure of Yunus Carrim, aside from the creation of the National ICT Forum, "which is fundamentally about more talk than actions".

Although SA did, for the first time, hear some detail on broadband plans mentioned in Zuma's state of the nation address, Goldstuck notes this was confined to connecting a few municipalities. "That is the equivalent of repairing potholes as opposed to improving roads."

Shadow minister of telecoms and postal services for the Democratic Alliance, Marian Shinn, has strong words as to where the DTPS and its appointed chief could be doing better. She says, under Cwele's watch, "the department is disintegrating".

Shinn says there is little commitment to implementing the legislative mandates of the amended Electronic Communications Act and SA Connect. The opposition minister adds there is "intense departmental infighting" with scores being settled with deputy DGs who were former minister Dina Pule's allies.

"[The department's weaknesses include] an executive management that is riven with revenge attacks, is subject to Special Investigating Unit investigations into Media Corner* and the ICT Indaba, and lacks apparent project-management skills to meet targets."

The de-facto telecoms department is not only shell-shocked from having had five ministers in six years when it was the DOC, says Shinn, but it is now also "subjected to having to manage the department's programmes in a legal quagmire brought about by the split in the old DOC".

Take the blocks, and build

In terms of the strengths of the DTPS, Goldstuck says the department has a strong support structure, with highly effective individuals - "when they are allowed to implement actions as opposed to restating policy".

Shinn, too, concedes there are "some knowledgeable and dedicated staff" at the DTPS. "[But they] are desperate for principled leadership from both a capable and knowledgeable minister, and appropriately skilled, target-driven and corruption-free executive management."

Goldstuck says the building blocks are in place for the crucial department to start doing the things the industry wants to see - and South African citizens need.

"The research has been conducted, the policy directions are in place. The potential exists for the department to do great things, and there is still room for positive sentiment. All we need now is action."

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