Seacom project steams on

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Cape Town, 13 Sept 2007

Seacom denies it is reconsidering laying its East Coast undersea cable and says it is in constant discussions with African governments about the project.

The undersea cable private venture consortium adds it is still studying the comments made earlier this week by communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri over the landing guidelines her department is drawing up.

Matsepe-Casaburri stated, at the Southern African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference 2007, held in Mauritius, that cables wanting to land in SA must be majority-owned by South African companies. She also said such cables must conform to the Nepad principles of non-discriminatory and open access, and comply with national security requirements.

She was adamant that Seacom's alliance with Neotel - which means Neotel would own the cable in the territorial waters - was not enough to satisfy the ownership criteria.

"We are in constant and close dialogue with all African governments with a stake in Seacom's cable, including particularly the South African government. We are, unfortunately, unable to comment on these discussions at this stage," a Seacom spokesman says.

Seacom has remained tight-lipped on its ownership. It will only officially confirm it is 52% African-owned, with South African investors holding a 25% stake, 27% owned by East African companies, 23% owned by European investors and the remainder owned by US private equity group Herackles Telecoms.

Prominent South African businessman Cyril Ramaphosa's Shanduka Group is involved in the project.

Seacom has also dismissed a Kenyan newspaper report that it was reconsidering the whole project, by saying: "It has no basis in fact."

Contractor Tyco Telecommunications is supposed to start construction of the Seacom cable this month. It is planned that the cable will stretch about 13 000km along the East African coast, eventually terminating in Europe and the Middle East.