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Matsepe-Casaburri: a true comrade

Alison Gillwald
By Alison Gillwald, Executive Director of Research ICT Africa.
Johannesburg, 27 Mar 2015

Alison Gillwald, executive director of Research ICT Africa, responds to ITWeb's recent story on late minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri:

I find the posthumous reference to the late minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri as 'Poison Ivy' in the headline (23 March 2015) in the context of a commemorative lecture celebrating her life and recognising her contribution to the struggle for liberation and transformation of the country profoundly inappropriate and insensitive by any cultural or journalistic standard. It is also unfortunate [ITWeb news journalist] Lauren Kate Rawlins did not request a current comment from me in this context, using instead an old quote in the context of a particular technical, policy review.

It is true that my criticism of the policy of 'managed liberalisation' that minister Matsepe-Casaburri had to take executive responsibility for is reflected in the poor policy outcomes evident in the country today ? poor broadband penetration, high communication costs and our descent over two decade down global ICT indices, all of which have cost us our international credibility. The lasting effects of these negative policy outcomes are clearly recorded in the diagnostic report of the National Development Plan, and indeed the 10-year and 15-year presidential reviews.

That the political blame for this is laid at Dr Matsepe-Casaburri's door should not mask the fact that she was merely the figurehead for policies formulated by government and within the ANC, which she served with unwavering commitment and loyalty. This is not to portray her as a passive victim of the leviathan, but the truth is, she, like so many ministers, did not initiate much of this policy but was rather the channel through which powerful interests were able to influence policies ? sometimes on time-warped ideological grounds, at other times on the basis of safeguarding expanding vested financial interests, and increasingly in the face of emerging evidence of their negative effects and their failure to realise from their original public interest intentions.

That some ministers do this better than others is clear. That in this instance a minister better equipped to withstand those pressures, or arguably, a person with greater energy and more digital savvy might have been better suited to the sector at that critical time can also not be laid at her door. No more so in the ANC where the mantra has always been collective responsibility. She did not place herself in office, just as the litany of ministers that have followed her in this sector ? five in five years ? did not place themselves there. That so little strategic value has been attached to the leadership of our communications sector in the 21st Century is one of the greatest travesties of our efforts to transform our economy.

So, let's not reduce her long and fruitful life to a decade in office where she had to take executive responsibility for poor national policy. You should not conflate her personal legacy with national policy failures for which we collectively need to take responsibility and which we can only be corrected collectively, as a nation. Do not let the contribution made by Ivy in other periods of her life and in the lives of others, including mine ? and to which former young students in Zambia who she mentored, and exiles in the US with whom she built intellectual capacity, and people living in deep rural areas that used electronic communications for the first time in multipurpose community centres that she championed, will testify, be negated by old headlines, labels and glib analysis.

Ivy was a comrade in the truest sense of the word. She stood alongside those who struggled, before and after 1994. She was exceptionally hard working and not afraid to acknowledge the learning curve she was thrust on and challenges she faced in the sector. She was after all a passionate educationist and believer in life-long learning. Digital inclusion was HER guiding principle and she would regularly start meetings with industry or her staff by saying: "Let us address this issue so the gogos back home will understand this."

She was the first woman on a lot of things: the CSIR board, the SABC board, and Ministry of Communications (Post and Telecommunications). She was not apologetic for her appointments nor was it sufficient to be appointed simply because she was a woman. She believed she was appointed because she could bring to the job something that no one else could. And she did, in numerous ways.

She was passionate about gender equality and there are few others who walk the talk quite like she did on this issue. There is no other minister, before or since, that has consistently appointed women to statutory bodies in their jurisdiction and senior leadership positions within their department as she has. In this predominantly male industry she did this not to fill quotas or to have women as deputies to male heads of organisations so that they would still be in safe hands, or even only once she had dealt with race - some were black, some were white.

When she announced my appointment to head the Digital Advisory Body in 2000 to deal with digital broadcasting migration, she said: "I am glad I have appointed a woman to head up the body but more importantly that she is the best person for the job." And, she reiterated this when, after the plan of the Advisory Board which Dr Matsepe-Casaburri had taken to Cabinet in 2002 and was accepted, subject to a cost implementation study being undertaken, was scuttled and another body the Digital Dzonga was appointed several years later, with Lara Kantor as its head.

Let me digress and expand further on this story as it highlights the dynamism and complexity of the converging broadcasting and telecommunications environment and web of political and economic interests that determine outcomes for which the executive responsible for the sector ultimately has to take responsibility.

If what had been proposed to Cabinet in 2002 and which inevitably had to be done, was done - before competing interests had become as vested as they have in the last decade ? we would have switched over by 2010 in a planned and coordinated way.

But it was not and the Digital Dzonga, appointed in 2008 (and again in 2011), had to deal with interests already far more vested than half a decade earlier. Yet it managed to build sufficient consensus for an industry DTT pilot to be set up and the implementation of the digital migration plan to be agreed on that would have seen us migrate well in advance of the 2015 ITU [International Telecommunication Union] cut-off that we have now failed to meet.

As you well recall, the well-advanced migration plan was derailed with the flip-flop on standards almost a decade after the matter had been laid to rest and considerable investments in the Sentech digital network undertaken when a new minister and DG decided, without reference to advisory body or even a new round of consultation, unilaterally to move to the Brazilian/Japanese standard following a fleeting visit with the charismatic President Lula.

The interregnum between this folly and the next minister reversing this decision was exploited by now deeply vested broadcasting and set-top box production interests to obfuscate the issues around the standards and subsidies for the set-top box so that a political resolution became almost impossible.

Of course by now Ivy was long gone, and other ministers could be vilified, but it does highlight how different a trajectory digital migration in the country might have taken and how opportunities have been squandered. It also shows how different minister Matsepe-Casaburri's legacy as minister might have been if her earlier efforts hadn't been scuppered or perhaps if she had not been so consistently ill-advised by the real Teflon guys, who she loyally kept by her side - and who have been recalled to advise minister after minister without ever having to account, or have their identities caricatured by these failures.

What better time than at the memorialisation of one of our leaders that we acknowledge that we have erred as a country in the area of ICT development, that many of our policies have done a disservice to our people and that the good stories to tell are largely despite our policies in this sector, not because of them.

Let's allow the potential of this sector to be unleashed: to serve the public interest, sustainably grow the economy, create jobs and most importantly enhance our human development, which is at the heart of successful informational development - an essential part of any modern state, and at the core of the National Development Plan. Let's stick to the Plan.

Let us, in her name, and the name of the other great leaders that overcame apartheid to improve the lives of citizens, rededicate ourselves to getting this right: to achieving the public interest objectives the late Dr Ivy Mastsepe-Casaburri was so committed to - affordable access to communications for all, and as we move into an Internet world, for all citizens to have the capacities to harness the benefits of ICT equitably.

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