Government's new broadband infrastructure company, Infraco, is operational, says public enterprises minister Alec Erwin.
Answering questions during a media briefing today, ahead of his budget speech before Parliament, Erwin said Infraco is currently housed in an operating subsidiary of Eskom, meaning Easitel.
He also said that the assets of that company and Transtel would be transferred once the law governing Infraco had been passed by Parliament and promulgated.
"However, for all intents and purposes Infraco is operational and is headed by Dave Smith. It is already lighting up various parts of the fibre network," Erwin said.
Earlier this year, Erwin stated that Infraco would be operational within the first quarter of the current year. However, little has been seen in public of its operational status.
In his budget speech, Erwin said: "It is simply no longer possible to compete in a global knowledge economy without low-cost, reliable and widely available bandwidth. There are businesses which could exist in our economy and do not because we have bandwidth costs that they cannot absorb."
He said that Infraco will, with other partners, such as the South African Research Network and the South African Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope consortium provide a series of new platforms for bandwidth expansion and affordability.
Erwin said that the "Infraco law", the legislation that has to be passed by Parliament that would be the governing law for the new entity, would be passed "during the course of the year."
Healthy friction
He discounted reports that there was some friction between his department and the National Treasury over the self-raising funding powers that Infraco would eventually have.
The friction centres around the structure of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), the law that governs the financial reporting structures of government departments and state-owned enterprises.
"If there was no healthy debate between my department and the National Treasury, then there would be either something wrong with us or them. The discussions do centre around just how Infraco will borrow money," he says.
Erwin said discussions between the Department of Public Enterprises and the National Treasury were technical and centred around the location of Infraco on the schedules of the PFMA.
"This will be solved before the legislation (the Infraco Bill) is presented before Parliament. No matter what the decision is, it won't affect operations and reporting structures," he said.
Erwin said: "Serious thought was being given to the laying of another marine cable, but Infraco would initially focus on national connectivity."
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