{"id":51081,"date":"2014-01-06T00:54:19","date_gmt":"2014-01-05T22:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=51081"},"modified":"2014-01-08T09:24:14","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T07:24:14","slug":"carrim-for-doc-minister-in-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/51081\/carrim-for-doc-minister-in-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrim for DoC minister in 2014?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The DA<\/a> and Cape Chamber of Commerce<\/a> weigh in on whether or not communications minister Yunus Carrim<\/a> should keep the portfolio, should the ANC<\/a> win the 2014 National Elections.<\/p>\n

Carrim was appointed as minister of communications in July 2013 in a Cabinet reshuffle by President Jacob Zuma<\/a>, which also saw discraced former communications head, Dina Pule<\/a>, get sacked.<\/p>\n

At the time of his appointment, Political analyst Somadoda Fikeni<\/a> described the minister as “one of the longest servicing deputy ministers,\u201d adding that he is \u201chardworking, quiet, and loyal\u201d.<\/p>\n

Many industry players, including the DA and Cape Chamber of Commerce, welcomed Carrim as the new communications lead – though questions were raised of his suitability to the portfolio, given his apparent lack of technical background.<\/p>\n

“We need technical political leadership that has insight and can make sense of a wide variety of technology related issues,” Roderick Lim Banda, Chairman of the Digital Portfolio Committee at the Cape Chamber of Commerce, told BusinessTech.<\/p>\n

“Time will tell if [Minister Carrim]’s lack of technical background will be problematic. If he has a capable team behind him and wise enough to listen to them, it may not be an issue.”<\/p>\n

\"Roderick<\/a>

Roderick Lim Banda at TedX Cape Town – [Image credit: Wouter du Toit]<\/p><\/div>Lim Banda highlighted that the communications minister – whoever that may be – would have their hands full dealing with a number of issues to get the department on the right track.<\/p>\n

“So far, there have not been enough results to determine if we are truly on track when it comes to digital convergence and spectrum allocation,” Lim Banda said.<\/p>\n

“Apart from the pressure on the minister to deliver outstanding and urgent deliverables, strong leadership is required in tackling more systemic issues.”<\/p>\n

According to DA shadow minister of communications, Marian Shinn<\/a>, for the sake of continuity at a department that desperately needs it, Carrim should be kept on as minister of the communications portfolio by the next government.<\/p>\n

Speaking on his performance thus far, Shinn told BusinessTech that the minister has done a “fair job” tackling critical issues and addressing staff and skills shortages at the department.<\/p>\n

“The jury is still out on whether he’s as good a listener as he is a talker,” Shinn noted.<\/p>\n

However, should Carrim not be reappointed to the position in 2014, Shinn hopes that his successor “will be a person who understands the economic necessity of having a dynamic, vibrant, prosperous, effectively regulated and internationally competitive ICT sector that can help pull South Africa out of its current quagmire.”<\/p>\n

More on Yunus Carrim<\/h3>\n

Carrim\u2019s Post Office application denied<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrim unveils SA cyber security council<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrim must answer for MultiChoice-SABC deal: DA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrim on LLU: wait a little bit longer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The DA and Cape Chamber of Commerce weigh in on whether or not communications minister Yunus Carrim should keep the portfolio, should the ANC win the 2014 National Elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":51082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[5292,2061,1444,26,2093,7236,6270],"class_list":["post-51081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-cape-chamber-of-commerce","tag-democratic-alliance","tag-doc","tag-headline","tag-marian-shinn","tag-roderick-lim-banda","tag-yunus-carrim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51081","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51081"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51414,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51081\/revisions\/51414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}