Budget Vote Speech on Communications By Vincent C Gore, MP
2004-06-22. Allow me to begin my address to day by congratulating the Hon Minister in her re-appointment and the dep Min in his appointment. On behalf of the Independent Democrats I would like to wish you well in these two very demanding positions.
The Independent Democrats feels very
strongly about the ever increasing problems associated with poverty and
unemployment. We are equally concerned about the growing divides
in our society, the divides between the haves and the have not, the
divides between the rich and the poor, and divides between the
connected and dis-connected.
The ID believes that through the ICT and broadcasting sectors much can be done in overcoming these divides. We further believe that this critical sector of our economy can play a pivitol role in addressing the needs of the two economies as identified by our President Mbeki earlier this year. The expansion of the first economy and the development of the second economy can be achieved by specific interventions by government. The process adopted by government is a fundamentally good one of liberilisation, but we believe that managed liberlisation has simply replaced an inefficient state owned monopoly by a slick private-public partnership that is raking in immoral profits, that is not delivering on the government's mandate of connecting South African's. It is simply not satisfactory to accept that the number of fixed lines in South Africa has dropped over the last 5 years from and that less than 3% of South Africans have access to the Internet. Telkom's reason for these disconnections of inability to pay, can only be interpreted as excessive call and connection costs, and this thesis is backed up when comparing costs to other countries.
What the South African consumer and citizen wants, no demands, Hon Minister, is cheap and affordable telecommunications services. This can only by achieved by removing the barriers to free and fair competition, such as the now embarrassingly long overdue SNO, the finalisaton of the convergance process and a well resourced and independent regulator.
I thank you.
The ID believes that through the ICT and broadcasting sectors much can be done in overcoming these divides. We further believe that this critical sector of our economy can play a pivitol role in addressing the needs of the two economies as identified by our President Mbeki earlier this year. The expansion of the first economy and the development of the second economy can be achieved by specific interventions by government. The process adopted by government is a fundamentally good one of liberilisation, but we believe that managed liberlisation has simply replaced an inefficient state owned monopoly by a slick private-public partnership that is raking in immoral profits, that is not delivering on the government's mandate of connecting South African's. It is simply not satisfactory to accept that the number of fixed lines in South Africa has dropped over the last 5 years from and that less than 3% of South Africans have access to the Internet. Telkom's reason for these disconnections of inability to pay, can only be interpreted as excessive call and connection costs, and this thesis is backed up when comparing costs to other countries.
What the South African consumer and citizen wants, no demands, Hon Minister, is cheap and affordable telecommunications services. This can only by achieved by removing the barriers to free and fair competition, such as the now embarrassingly long overdue SNO, the finalisaton of the convergance process and a well resourced and independent regulator.
I thank you.
