Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, after her retirement from cabinet next year, wants to "encourage an appreciation of cyber terrorism and threats that go with it".
I'd like to call on her to encourage cyberterrorism itself.
As she foists her soporific self on non-governmental organisations (because governmental organisations won't take a blundering Mbeki loyalist who, legend has it, was asleep the last time she was appointed to cabinet), I reckon this would be a grand gesture. Having failed on all fronts during her ten years in government, her legacy will be ensured if she can muster the energy for one last magnificent failure. The thought of Poison Ivy working against cyberterrorism must have Osama bin Laden cowering in his cave.
Re-reading my column in ITWeb Brainstorm in March 2003, headlined Root out Poison Ivy, what surprises me isn't that president Thabo Mbeki shepherded this sheep to a graceful retirement, but that the reasons for demanding her resignation five years ago sound so fresh today.
Bemoaning high communication costs, the failure to take advantage of the telecommunications boom, the absence of a plan upon the expiry of Telkom's monopoly, and the habitual bungling over licences, it said: "Almost a year later, there is still no sign of the long-awaited competition for Telkom."
It would take another five years before South Africans, only whimpering now from the constant irritation of toxicodendron radicans (the scientific name for "managed liberalisation"), would see the first green shoots of competition.
During that time, South Africa has declined consistently in the networked readiness index of the World Economic Forum. If memory serves, South Africa was the 17th most connected country in the mid-1990s. By 2003, in the low 30s, it was still ranked in the top quarter. Today, at number 51, it's at the wrong end of the top half and falling rapidly.
She never bothered to resolve the problem of concurrent jurisdiction between the regulator and the Competition Commission, which predates the establishment of Icasa, and has permitted Telkom to sue for lack of jurisdiction in most major stalling actions it mounted in the courts.
Despite the mandate to "liberalise", the "management" part has given the minister licence to close sweetheart deals with favoured companies. Far from reducing the state's role in the telecommunications sector, it retains interests - old and new - all over the place.
Ironically, it has failed to protect even those. Sentech is a cash-strapped non-entity, whose only value lies in the grandiose mandates it has to give us all broadband and digital TV and magic 3D X-ray glasses.
The thought of Poison Ivy working against cyberterrorism must have Osama bin Laden cowering in his cave.
Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist and columnist.
Telkom's years of protection have resulted in a company floundering without strategic direction. All the reasons government claimed to protect it have proven vain. All Telkom's stated ambitions have come to naught. Having cut a swathe of destruction among the long-suffering citizens of South Africa - businesses burdened with high costs and inadequate facilities, ISPs coping with a consumptive market ruled by a litigious tyrant, or regular citizens who remain as underserviced as ever - it now appears to be on its final dead man's walk. Perhaps Tokyo Sexwale's resources company appreciates its ability to mine the eyes out of its monopoly businesses.
In an article by ITWeb correspondent Paul Vecchiatto, Poison Ivy makes a pathetic attempt to define her legacy. She has to dig deep, and the only indicator that might brighten an otherwise dark era is cellphones, in which her only contribution was the right royal mess of the third cellular licence. (If you don't remember all the drama of that episode of delay, litigation and alleged corruption, the second operator licence was merely a replay in slow motion.)
Nobody in government thought there was a market for more than half a million or so cellphones, so the government left two competing operators free to exploit rich people. Before long, the handsets were free, data charges were among the cheapest in the world, and there were more cellphones than people in South Africa. Today, almost eight of every ten households have access to cellphones, compared to less than two with access to those precious landlines for which Telkom got its monopoly, and less than one with internet access.
Lesson: whatever success has been achieved in the cellular market is no thanks to government.
Sadly, when you burn poison ivy, the noxious smoke can kill at a mile. And it isn't the only noxious weed in the forest either. Her likely successors will either share the belief that government can direct and harness the market, or are likely to cave to the left wing of the ruling party. Chances are that government interference and control will only increase.
Her retirement may be long overdue, and undeservedly graceful, but that's because it won't change a thing.
* Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist and columnist, who blogs at http://ivo.co.za/.
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