The long-awaited ICT charter is finally nearing completion, yet there are still outstanding issues that need to be wrapped up before government's March deadline for gazetting - and not all the steering committee members are on the same page.
As a result, it seems that some committee members are trying desperately to wrap up the charter, but have excluded other members of the panel, which will prevent finalisation of the document.
The sectoral charter has been in the pipeline for at least the last seven years, and has been held up several times as numerous “final” iterations have been completed, but not gazetted. The process of launching the document dates back to 2003, and a “final” version was released two years later.
However, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) gazetted the BEE Code of Good Practice in February 2007, which meant that the charter had to be aligned with the codes, causing yet another delay.
Then the Electronic Industry Federation (EIF) refused to sign off on the charter, saying its targets were unrealistic. Without consensus from all the industry players, the charter cannot be gazetted and come into effect.
Green for go
However, the document seems to be resurfacing. According to an e-mail sent to the DTI, by steering committee member Andile Tlhoa'ele, key objections by the EIF, which were holding up the charter, have been resolved.
The mail indicates the ICT Charter Steering Committee met in October and finalised all the outstanding issues required to clean up the document. The mail, sent to director of BEE Partnerships at the DTI, Thabo Masombuka, asked for clarity on how to go about having the charter gazetted.
Once those issues have been resolved, says Masombuka, the charter can be gazetted. However, he has no idea how long it will take to sort out the outstanding items, and the March deadline for publication of all charters is drawing closer.
“If the charter is not gazetted [by March], then there will be no charter,” says Masombuka. He explains the aspects that have yet to be resolved include concrete evidence of consensus by the industry bodies involved in the charter.
In addition, says Masombuka, the department needs to make sure the charter is in line with the spirit of both the relevant legislation and the empowerment codes. “We are not going to gazette a charter for the sake of gazetting.”
Masombuka says he will meet with the steering committee before the festive season break in a bid to ensure these issues are sorted out.
What meeting?
However, getting everyone to agree to the latest version of the charter could prove to be difficult. Adrian Schofield, president of the Computer Society of SA and a member of the committee, says he was never informed about the October meeting.
As a result, he suspects that not all steering committee members were present, which rules out any consensus on the charter's contents.
Schofield says he “would be surprised if they have ironed out all the problems”. He explains all the parties involved with the charter need to agree, and proof of this agreement and the signatories' mandates must be provided to the department.
The ICT charter is the most disputed document ever, says Schofield, pointing out that most of the original industry players involved in the process have moved on. The repeated delays in getting the document off the ground have become a waste of time, says Schofield.
Sectoral charters have not been a success, he says, because they allow for deviations from the codes, if justified. This opens up the process to abuse as corporate SA is “not all pushing in the same direction”, says Schofield.
Schofield says, instead of sector-specific charters, corporate SA should play from one rule book and stick to the codes.
Tlhoa'ele was not immediately available to comment this morning.
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