We made costly errors — Maseko

SIPHO Maseko concedes that Telkom was slow to see that it could no longer rely on voice as a source of revenue.

“We hung on to fixed voice for too long. We took too long to invest in the access networks to make broadband available. We took too long to drive fibre investment, especially in the areas where it would make sense to have fibre investment to the home and to the business. We’ve made a number of mistakes.”

Blowing R10-billion on its Multi-Links adventure in Nigeria was one of the biggest, he says. But far more damaging was the decision to sell its 50% share in Vodacom instead of buying Venfin’s stake. “We could have bought the Venfin stake and had control.”

Having thrown away ownership of the wellentrenched and lucrative cellphone giant, Telkom then did what all the experts warned it not to, which was to start a mobile business from scratch. “That was error number three, I would say.”

Telkom has slashed expenditure on its mobile business by 80% but this does not indicate less commitment, he says. When he became CEO he said he’d spend money on the business only once it had shown that it could get customers. “I can’t keep throwing money into a big black hole.”

Maseko agrees that some of the blunders of the past beggar belief but refuses to play the blame game.

The good news is that the “special arrangement” that allowed the government, with 39% of Telkom, to dictate strategy expired more than two years ago. “They have no special rights any more, all shareholders are equal,” he says.

His only comment about that disastrous relationship is that “you can never choose your parents. We now treat all shareholders the same.”