{"id":15226,"date":"2012-06-12T19:46:01","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T17:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=15226"},"modified":"2012-06-13T09:53:12","modified_gmt":"2012-06-13T07:53:12","slug":"doc-budget-rejected-by-da","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/15226\/doc-budget-rejected-by-da\/","title":{"rendered":"DoC budget rejected by DA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Had the Democratic Alliance (DA)<\/a> not walked out of parliament this afternoon (12 June 2012), Shadow Minister of Communications\u00a0Marian Shinn would have delivered a 2-minute speech explaining the DA\u2019s decision<\/a>\u00a0not to support the Department of Communications\u2019 budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past 18 years the Department of Communications<\/a> has failed South Africa,\u201d the speech begins. \u201cIf it continues on its present bumbling path, it will cripple our economic growth and be a major hindrance to the delivery of services by all spheres of government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shinn wrote that perpetual policy reviews, workshops and expensive conferences create the impression of a leadership incapable of grasping the issues and urgently making bold decisions.<\/p>\n

\"Marian<\/a>

Marian Shinn, Shadown Minister of Communications<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt is caught between the ideological obsession of controlling the outcomes of its misguided policies and putting in place an ICT ecosystem where the smartest and most innovative South Africans can apply their skills for our nation\u2019s success,\u201d said Shinn.<\/p>\n

The Telkom-KT deal<\/h3>\n

According to Shinn, this was clearly evident in Cabinet\u2019s dismissal of the board-approved proposal to have KT Corporation<\/a> invest in Telkom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shinn went on to call Telkom a parastatal.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely this is reckless disregard by the majority shareholder for the value of this state asset and the role it plays,\u201d Shinn said.<\/p>\n

Shinn said that this proposed deal was an opportunity for risk-free growth for the \u201cstruggling and uncompetitive\u201d Telkom.<\/p>\n

However, Cabinet failed to grasp the deal\u2019s potential for market and job growth, skills upgrading, and infrastructure rollout, Shinn said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTelkom owns most of the broadband infrastructure in the country and the KT Corp deal promised to fast track its expansion to meet the Minister\u2019s 2020 goal,\u201d Shinn said. \u201cBut we slammed the door on that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Digital terrestrial television migration<\/h3>\n

Shinn said that South Africa\u2019s migration from analogue to digital terrestrial<\/a> broadcasting is another DoC project \u201cin a muddle\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Minister is having the wool pulled over her eyes about the pace at which the SABC is migrating to digital broadcasting,\u201d Shinn said. \u201cIn fact the transition has hardly started.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is still confusion about whether South Africa will import the set-top boxes (STBs) needed to convert digital signals for viewing on our current TV sets, or be restricted to the more expensive locally made ones.<\/p>\n

Contrary to the DoC\u2019s advertising campaign, Shinn remarked, these STBs will not be available until the middle of next year (2013).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe department\u2019s policies, poor leadership and lack of capacity will doom South Africa to slip further behind other African countries in becoming economically empowered through technology,\u201d Shinn concluded.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

KT Corp block horrendously, stupendously, horrifically bad<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

ICT Policy Review panel nominations open<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Telkom: where did it all go wrong?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Digital TV decoders to include Internet access<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Will the DoC ever get its act together?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Please don\u2019t mess this one up as well, DoC<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Communications continues to fail South Africa, writes Shadow Minister of Communications<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":4648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1087,26,98,2093,65],"class_list":["post-15226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-department-of-communications","tag-headline","tag-kt-corporation","tag-marian-shinn","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15226"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15274,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15226\/revisions\/15274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}