Cwele warns cell network operators

Telecommunications minister Siyabonga Cwele has threatened to review contracts into which the government has entered with cellphone network companies, should they continue to resist calls for the cost of data to fall.

Cwele claimed network operators were blackmailing the government by warning of job losses should they be forced to cut data prices.

The cabinet has given him a month to consider alternative ways to reduce the price of data, while the Competition Commission and communications regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), conduct separate investigations into the matter.

Vodacom and Cell C said they were cooperating with the department of telecommunications over lower data prices, and disputed the allegation.

Cwele said his department would continue to engage with companies to get them to bow to pressure from consumers.

“[If they don’t co-operate the] government is the biggest procurer of goods and services … We will have to relook at our own contracts with some of these companies,” he said.

The government has been under pressure from political parties and civil society to intervene in the exponential rises in costs of data and communication.

Cwele said job losses were not the only way out.

“What we keep asking them is why do SA companies charge up to eight times more than what they charge other African countries … ” Cwele said.

Vodacom said the allegation cellphone companies were blackmailing the government was baseless.

It was factually incorrect, it said, to say data prices were eight times more expensive in SA than elsewhere as Icasa had published a report earlier this year saying SA prices were below the average price of all the SADC prices across the categories.