Yes, we have a failure of communications

WHAT was the president thinking? On Sunday last week, President Jacob Zuma sent shock waves through South Africa’s technology industry by dumping his hard-working communications minister, Yunus Carrim — arguably the most competent person to hold the portfolio since the 1990s— and splitting the ministry in two.

The Department of Communications will remain, but it will be transformed into a kind of information department — critics say it has all the hallmarks of a propaganda wing — with the SABC, the government’s communications arm, GCIS, Brand South Africa, the Media Diversity and Development Agency and, more troubling, communications regulator Icasa reporting to it.

Already, many South Africans hold the view that the SABC, which remains the primary news and information source for millions of people, has been captured by its political masters, much as it was by the Nats under apartheid. Placing it under an information ministry, alongside the GCIS, will do little to change the

Zuma has done the opposite of ‘creating stability in this ministry’

view that it has become a state rather than a public broadcaster.

Then there is a new Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (it has such a pre-internet ring to it), headed by former state security minister Siyabonga Cwele.

He is best known for championing the contentious Protection of State Information Bill, better known as the secrecy bill. Will the world of modern telecoms, built on openness and the free flow of information and ideas, square with Cwele’s world view? Will he seek greater government control over the internet in South Africa? Time will tell, but at face value Cwele’s appointment is troubling.

Even if Cwele turns out to be a competent telecoms minister, the instability and delays that Zuma’s changes will cause are intolerable.

In five years, the president has had no fewer than five ministers in this crucial portfolio. There was Siphiwe Nyanda, who squandered millions in taxpayers’ money on luxury hotels and cars before being sent to parliament as Zuma’s adviser.

Nyanda was followed by the affable but ineffective Roy Padayachie, who was redeployed to public service and administration before his death in 2012. Then came the disastrous Dina Pule, whose crookedness while in office was exposed by this newspaper.

Carrim was a godsend by comparison. He ran a tight ship, would not brook stupidity and set and stuck to (for the most part) ambitious deadlines. He also made enemies, most notably MultiChoice, which attacked him in newspaper advertisements over his policy on set-top box control for digital TV. He was also critical of the big mobile operators.

But those celebrating Carrim’s downfall were in the minority. As the SOS Coalition, whose members include trade union federation Cosatu and the Freedom of Expression Institute, noted this week, Zuma has done the opposite of “creating stability in a ministry that has been beset by scandal and the turbulence caused by five ministers in five years”.

So, communications has been split in two, with Cwele looking after a dysfunctional Post Office and a telecoms sector in urgent need of policy certainty, and the little-known Faith Muthambi running the overhauled Communications Department.

Assuming the split in ministries is even possible without significant legislative changes — legal experts are warning it is not — the fact that it will lead to further delays in critical projects is inexcusable. If Zuma was convinced of a need for change, he should have ensured it was done over a period of years to minimise disruption to the sector. His decision appears to be kneejerk, done more to address a perceived need to enhance the government’s— and presumably his — image in the eyes of voters than to fix the significant policy bottlenecks holding back telecoms and broadband.

South Africa now will not make its commitment to meet the mid-2015 deadline to switch off analogue television. It will not allocate the spectrum needed to improve our poor broadband penetration. And a long overdue overhaul of legislation governing the sector will almost certainly be significantly delayed. In short, we have a big problem. McLeod edits TechCentral.co.za. Find him on Twitter @mcleodd