For South Africa’s ICT sector the past year has been its most exasperating since the dawn of democracy.

For more than two decades stakeholders have participated in workshops, forums and policy reviews – often with high-powered international players – to advise the ANC how to make our nation the ICT powerhouse of Africa.

Through the Electronic Communications Act of 2005 we took our first steps towards joining the worldwide knowledge economy through converged electronic communications.

For a brief period at the end of the 4th Parliament there was an encouraging spurt of activity. At the start of the 5th Parliament we took a Great Leap Backwards. On a Cabinet whim, the former Department Communications was split.

This drastic move was contrary to international trends and the recommendations of the extensively researched ICT Policy Green Paper gazetted in January 2014.

For the new Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services, the result of the split is, for example:

•     A legal quagmire that has created uncertainty and mistrust in the sector;
•     Inexplicable delays in making critical decisions – about publishing a spectrum policy, for example;
•     Little tangible movement on implementing South Africa Connect;
•     A missed deadline on developing a policy to, for example, remove local government red tape that is the major hindrance in laying cables;
•     No finality on the future of Broadband Infraco;
•     The expulsion of South Africa from the International Telecommunications Union;
•     A dysfunctional department – subject to SIU probes and disciplinary hearings, and
•     More missed targets than ever before and a budget underspend of 49% at the end of last year.

If you still practised medicine, Honourable Minister, you would be facing a malpractise suit.

You said it would take three years for the new department to settle down. We can’t afford this.

In the past year, we’ve dropped five places on the World Economic Forum’s Networked Readiness Index. At 75 we lag Mongolia, Bulgaria and Armenia. In Africa we lag Mauritius and Seychelles.

We can’t afford to waste more time radically disrupting the sector to suit political whimsy.

Chairperson, recently the minister said the lack of broadband networks reaching all South Africa’s citizens was a failure of the market.

What rubbish. It’s been hobbled by a government that holds many stakeholder meetings, but is deaf to the sector’s pleas for policy and regulatory certainty, less red tape and rigorous implementation of the EC Act.

This ANC government must take the blame for broadband inertia. Get out of the way, minister, and let the ICT sector deliver.

It understands that telecommunications eradicates remoteness and gives citizens, irrespective of location, the opportunity to become internet-savvy citizens and seek economic freedom.

That South Africa’s use of ICTs grows at all is thanks to the private sector’s commitment to facilitating our economic and developmental opportunities.

For example, the three mobile companies plan to spend about R21 billion on telecommunications infrastructure this year. Good news – But there’s a double-edged sword here.

They are taking the capital expenditure route to deliver more and better services because the cheaper option – using wireless broadband spectrum – is denied them.

This is thanks to the political meddling, crony favouritism and sheer incompetence that have bedeviled the transition to digital broadcasting. This has halted the release of analogue spectrum for wireless broadband use.

This means mobile call rates remain high.

Proudly brought to you by the ANC.

Last week, Honourable Minister, you launched a National ICT Forum to consult stakeholders.

Why? What can its participants tell you that surpasses the input given recently to the ICT Policy Review panel?

And SA Connect’s National Broadband Advisory Council? They’ve been waiting for a year to meet you.

And how can an ICT forum not include a regulator? Where was ICASA last week?

One of the ‘chambers’ in the new forum includes cyber security. Why? A Cyber Security Advisory Council to advise you on policy and technical issues was appointed in December 2013.

This council has often asked to meet with you. You have ignored them.

The ICT sector’s impression of the minister’s first year is that he is Disengaged and Disinterested.

The strategic plan of SITA, presented to the portfolio committee on April 21st, clearly illustrates ministerial indifference.

It was a poorly photocopied ‘cut-and-paste’ assemblage of previous reports. A schoolboy would be embarrassed to hand this in as homework.

Honourable Minister, you signed this report on March 15. Did you read it? Maybe not, as each page was marked ‘confidential’.

This is the same, sloppy SITA that held a gun to the DA-led government of the Western Cape, legally forcing its way into our broadband project. This legal wrangle delayed the rollout by a year and added considerable costs.

But SITA will learn much from being included in the Western Cape’s Connected Government Project.

By the end of this year rural citizens will connect to the internet at 215 far-flung public libraries. Throughout the province citizens will get free WiFi internet access at 384 government offices.

Where the DA governs, it delivers.

During SONA the president announced a pilot SA Connect national project to roll out broadband to eight district municipalities.

The promise of connectivity on such a scale is impressive, but where are the plans, budget and realistic deadlines for this? No one could tell the portfolio committee.

The overall management for this multi-department project rests, I am told, in the Department of Telecommunications – the department that can’t meet its own internal administration targets. Good luck with that.

The DA in national government will do it differently. We will motivate and incentivise the private sector to roll out the network.

We will foster regulatory certainty by establishing a skilled, properly resourced and trusted regulator. We will simplify licence conditions to foster a sustainable, price-competitive market.

Electronic communications, under the Democratic Alliance will be a national priority. Tender processes will be fair and transparent. Personal and economic freedom will be promoted and protected.

There will be opportunities for all to prosper in our connected world.