Telkom will be hitched to an ox wagon: analyst
Communications Minister Dina Pule recently said that Telkom’s fate will be decided at the ANC’s electoral conference in Mangaung, but analyst Chris Hart said that the ANC’s decisions will not help the company.
Pule told Business Day that ANC delegates at the Mangaung conference will weigh up the options the Department of Communications has proposed for reviving the company.
“The final policy decision that would be taken at the conference would shape Telkom’s strategy and the running of the sector in general,” Pule told Business Day.
However, Chris Hart, chief strategist at Investment Solutions, said that the ANC’s policy makers will ensure that Telkom will be “hitched to an ox wagon”.
“Telkom has fabulous potential, but you have archaic thinking from the governmental policy makers,” Hart said.
The analyst said that the strategic direction for Telkom from the Mangaung conference will have a traditional 1950’s idealistic overview instead of taking into account the modern age of telecoms.
“Not even the British socialists would ever want to return to a single operator in that market – they know what it was like,” Hart said.
He added that Vodacom, MTN and Cell C are far better positioned than Telkom, which is hamstrung by government, to take advantage of the rapidly changing technology and telecoms market.
Telkom’s shares have lost nearly 48% of their value in 2012.
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