President Thabo Mbeki is showing concern over the impact of high telecommunications costs on the economy, say politicians from most major parties. However, they were disappointed he did not say more.
In today's State of the Nation address that marks the official opening of Parliament for the year, Mbeki made a number of references to ICT, its impact on business process outsourcing, the costs of telecoms and the need for the prices to be reduced.
Deputy communications minister Roy Padayachie says the president's remarks should be seen within the context of government's central strategy of poverty alleviation.
"The president has made it clear poverty alleviation is still the centrepiece of government's strategy, and a lot of the measures announced are part of the macro-social security framework. He has emphasised that ICT will play a central role in this regard," Padayachie says.
Mbeki mentioned that dominant telecoms utility Telkom had agreed to give 10 call centres - to be located in underprivileged areas - preferential call rates. He also noted that Telkom and the cellular network operators were looking at reducing interconnection costs.
Dene Smuts, communications spokesperson for the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, says Mbeki missed the point about Telkom giving preferential call rates to those centres.
"If it can be done for those centres, then why can it not be done for the entire business process outsourcing industry and the entire country?"
Wrong connection
Smuts says the president's comments about interconnection also miss the point that the regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA), has been playing a central role in this regard.
She was hoping for greater clarity on public enterprises minister Alec Erwin and communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri playing a role in telecoms, an issue which is causing confusion in the industry.
Pieter Mulder, leader of the Freedom Front +, says he was not surprised the president did not mention ICASA.
"ICASA is in such a mess that it is obvious as to why no mention was made. Hopefully, the initiatives that Mbeki announced, and that were obviously fed to him by the communications minister, will be speedily implemented, because often such initiatives were announced in the past and not followed through," Mulder says.
Vincent Gore, spokesperson for the Independent Democrats, says the most positive aspect of the speech was the president's implicit acknowledgement that the cost of telecoms was a stumbling block for the economy.
"However, what we need is for the cost of interconnection to be reduced and the regulator needs to be beefed up," he says.
Gore adds that the prohibitive cost of international broadband also needs to be addressed.
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