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Date : 19/05/2005
Source: Department of Communications
Title: Padayachie: Communications Dept Budget Vote 2005/2006


    Speech by Deputy Minister of Communications, Radhakrishna L Padayachie, in support of the Department of Communications’ Budget Vote 26, to the National Assembly on the occasion of the Budget Vote of the Department of Communications

Chairperson
Honourable Minister
Colleagues in the Executive
Members of the Portfolio Committee
Honourable Members of Parliament
Distinguished Guests

INTRODUCTION

Insurance companies when predicting the future generally tell us that ‘the future is a matter of choice and not chance’. I have to ask the honourable member of the Opposition Dene Smuts whether she agrees with this statement. Of course, the question really is, what has Dene got in common with an insurance company?

Well you see, an insurance company is in the business of ‘Futures’. And so to is the honourable member of the opposition. She tries very hard in this sector of our work to sell her party’s vision of the future, albeit without much success.

The insurance company, on the other hand, is more successful in selling its vision that guarantees insurance against the future.

Madam Speaker, I must also declare that we too, on this side of the house are in this business of the ‘Futures’ market.

Not only have well over 70% of the country’s people bought into the African National Congress’s (ANC) vision of the ‘Future’. Today, as we celebrate the year of the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Charter and enter our third decade of Freedom and Democracy in Government under the leadership of the ANC, we take great pride in not only declaring but also in the making of a future that guarantees a better life for all on the basis of the Freedom Charter and the Constitution of the country.

Ladies and gentlemen, from the perspective of this particular sector, the very fundamental question really is:

What is your future to be?

The one thing you could be sure of is that:

“You will spend most of the rest of your life there…
…And you’ll never get out of it alive!”

Wolfgang Grulke, in his book, ‘10 Lessons from the Future’ reminds us that the 20th century bore witness to some of the most dramatic changes humanity has ever undergone:

* the automobile changed the world
* the airplane made it possible to have breakfast in Paris and lunch in New York City
* radio and television delivered news and
entertainment from all parts of the globe in real time
* nuclear energy was unleashed for both good and bad. But today, the changes brought about by the Internet may still turn out to be the most dramatic of them all. The Internet has collapsed time and distance, forever changing the way we live, learn, work and play. We have approached the time where we can have anything, anytime and at anyplace.

Madam Speaker, forecasting is difficult, especially when it concerns the future.

Today, with hindsight we can see that the culture of the sixties and seventies spawned radical new attitudes, products and companies, all of which are taken for granted.

But if you turn around and look at the future, you will find most visions of the next 20 or 30 years sound like so much science fiction. ‘Impossible’ we say, ‘It just won’t happen.’ The truth of the matter is that there is a revolution-taking place, right here before our very eyes! Not the kind that you are so accustomed to; where workers and students are rioting in the streets, banners flying high, statues toppling down from their pedestals. In this age of CNN’s breaking story, we have grown accustomed to watching social and political upheavals as it happens, thanks to technological developments in broadcasting and communications.

Not every revolution is transmitted in real time or hammered home from breathless reports from the battlefront. Some revolutions arrive without fanfare. Some revolutions take place in silence. Some revolutions can turn your life upside down, without you even being aware that they are happening.

Madam Speaker, in the last 40 or 50 years, two major revolutions have transformed the world. The combination of open global markets and innovative technology has led to the internationalisation and de-regulation of markets weaved together by a converging information highway.

Globalisation and de-regulation has become the driving forces of unprecedented openness. Globalisation has effectively removed many of the barriers around countries and created conditions for free, open and de-regulated trade. Though, not all of it is healthy and good. At the centre of all of this has been science and technology, in particular the telecommunications industry.

The computer and the telecommunications industry have provided the platform for this unprecedented revolution.

The advent of the convergence of technologies and its applications in fields beyond electronics takes us into an excitingly different future, which is making the world digital and ubiquitous, and increasingly a smaller place to be in.

Huge mainframe computers, once the size of a room have given way to desktops, laptops, palmtops and PDAs. Circular slabs of double sided vinyl have given way to CDs, mini discs and DVDs.

Giant radio receivers with glowing humming valves have given way to transmitter radios, tiny enough to plug into your ear. A home video camcorder can now fit into the palm of your hand and miniaturised cell phones fit into your top shirt pocket. This is yet only the beginning. Today, you don’t even need a radio to listen to the radio.

You can tune into your choice of news, simply by clicking on the right place on your Internet browser. You do not need a CD player to catch up on your latest pop hits. Digital music in the form of highly compressed MP3 files can be downloaded at leisure for playback through your computer speakers.

As we move into the era of the 2020s, it is possible to see that such commonplace devices such as a radio; CD player and VCR will become quaint and obsolete. We may say goodbye to the VCR and even the television channels. As television becomes a sub-set of the Internet, all channels might disappear resulting in no more CNN, BBC or SABC. Only the content organisation business will survive.

In this world of an ubiquitous future everything such as the computer, telephones, consumer appliances, home entertainment, vending machines and you, will eventually be connected in a world that will possess what may be best described as a digital skin. A network of billions of connected devices, all capable of talking with one another, thereby creating a ubiquitous system for the entire planet. This will dramatically transform our everyday lives and the apparatus that manage our lives.

Take the humble doorbell for example; if someone rings it and no one is at home, it turns out to be a useless device. However, if your doorbell was connected to this digital skin, it could cause your cell phone to ring. You could talk to the caller, from wherever you are and decide whether to allow access digitally. After all, it may be your child who has locked herself out.

Or you may be able to switch your lights on or draw your curtains when you are stuck in traffic on your way home from the office by remote from your cell phone or other device or even feed your pet.

Going even beyond the immediate future, this march of technology of information and communications technologies (ICTs), computers and communications brings forth an even newer world of miniaturisation with even more revolutionary possibilities.

Can you imagine a world of miniature computers that are manufactured atom-by-atom, molecule-by-molecule to be embedded wherever, whenever and in whomever?

Envisage an age when the personal computer (PC) as we know it will be a real PC, the size of a pin head and capable of being implanted under the skin of your body.

Think about a future where you won’t even have to think about computers, because they will be too small to be seen by the naked eye.

Welcome, Madam Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, to the brave new universe of nanotechnology. A world where everything is a billionth times smaller. We are talking here about the next big thing of the technological revolution of the 21st Century.

Apply this technology to biology, to medicine and the wonders of the discovery of the human genome then you can imagine a world without poverty, without disease, a world without hunger.

A world where armies of silent invisible robots programmed to manipulate and re-arrange atoms one by one, could assemble anything from a car; to a beefsteak or travel through your bloodstream to alter your cells and reverse the processes that cause illness and ageing.

This might sound like science fiction or far fetched, but not so when you consider that the very same process is used today to turn coal into glittering ‘diamonds’, or desert sand into the silicon chips, which is at the heart of every electrical device.

This nascent science of nanotechnology, which envision an endless production line of nano-robots shaping items, atom by atom, brings within our grasp the alchemy of a whole new age.

The age of the designer molecule has arrived, creating the biotech revolution.

Imagine a world where the skills, infrastructure and systems of the information age are fused with the natural world of biology, setting the scene for a whole new world of a whole new genre of life such as new crops, new medicines and a whole lot of new innovations.

A bio economy that may well turn out to be more powerful than the information economy, which we are still catching up with.

Can this be a second information revolution? A revolution that is no longer driven by biologists but by new age information professionals who are exploring and conquering the complexities of life!

SECOND ECONOMY

The world that I have just described, may well be argued is a world of the First Economy. Yet, side by side with this we know, that in our country, there is the poverty and underdevelopment of the Second Economy in which millions of our people are economic operators.

Whilst the First Economy is looked upon as the engine of overall growth for the economy as a whole, we know that the vast millions of our people who are active in the second economy cherish the hope that they too, will be able to leapfrog their lives out of the poverty trap of the legacy of disadvantage and inequality bequeathed to them by an Apartheid past.

The challenge we face as a nation is to connect the two to advance the overall good of the people.

THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS

The Department of Communications is imbued with the vision that ICTs have a strategic and important role to play in this process, both as an enabler of growth in the economy and as a development trampoline to leverage our people out of poverty.

The strategic thrust of the Department is best summarised in its vision statement which I quote:

“A global leader in harnessing ICTs for Socio-Economic development”

This is borne out of our understanding that the information economy has become an ever more central part of and will play an ever more increasing role in South Africa’s national economic development.

Communication networks provide the infrastructure of the national economy and will constitute the basis and a major driving force for the higher growth of the economy and will therefore occupy a strategic importance in the economic life of the nation.

Resonating with this direction the Department’s overall strategy has been to develop policies and legislation aimed at:

* liberalising the telecommunications sector
* stimulating growth in the economy
* attracting foreign direct investment
* increasing competition and moving away from conditions of monopoly
* the facilitation of broad based BEE
* the advancement of SMMEs and strategic Second Economy interventions.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Madam Speaker, let me just say that the focus of the Department of Communications’ legislative programme of convergence, broadband policy development, digital migration and the other policy initiatives enunciated by the Minister is to ensure that the country has the necessary and appropriate infrastructure to take us into this exciting ubiquitous and digital world of the future.

The Convergence Bill is aimed at removing policies that hinder the development of cross-sector applications, services and businesses. Once promulgated the legislation will reflect the integration of telecommunications with IT, broadcasting and broadcasting signal distribution. Convergence legislation will ensure citizens are empowered with better access to knowledge and information.

A National e-Strategy framework to facilitate the use and adoption of ICTs across all economic sectors will also be developed together with a national strategy and policy for broadband development.

A Digital Migration Policy framework to facilitate the introduction of new diverse digital services will be developed. Digitisation will enable South Africa to be integrated into the global economy and to manage South Africa’s migration from an analogue to a digital environment inline with multilateral institutions such as the ITU, the World Trade Organisation and the African Union.

It is to this that I speak and in support of the Minister and her commendation of the Department’s budget to the House.

Allow me to express my sincere appreciation and thanks to the Minister for her warmth, encouragement, guidance and support in my role as Deputy Minister and to the Director-General and the Department staff for their diligence, hard work and commitment.

Together with our partners in the private sector, our portfolio organisations and our sister departments, we are assured that we will accomplish our responsibilities with confidence.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Communications
19 May 2005
 

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