The DA used its federal congress at the weekend to declare its intention to lead a national coalition government after next year’s general election. Failing that, re-elected party leader John Steenhuisen said, the DA will do everything it can — presumably including getting into bed with the ANC — to head off a coalition between the ANC and the radical left EFF, a political pact the DA believes would destroy South Africa.
But can the DA expect to exercise real political power on the national stage next year? Opinion polls suggest it has clawed back many of the voters it lost in the 2019 poll — and then some. Its internal polling shows it’s likely to get about 26% of the national vote next year, and the ANC about 40%.
Whether it garners sufficient support from the electorate next year to lead a coalition of parties that excludes the ANC, or whether it links up with the ANC to keep Julius Malema and the EFF away from the levers of power, it’s time the DA’s policy positions are scrutinised in greater detail.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the information & communications technology (ICT) space, the DA has much work to do. The ICT policy document on its website was written 10 years ago, a lifetime in technology terms, and it doesn’t deal with important modern topics.
The DA document speaks of the “dominance of partially state-owned Telkom in the telecommunications backbone and telephony markets” and the “delays in the allocation of spectrum for high-speed wireless access”. But Telkom, though sizeable, is no longer dominant, and the auction of high-demand spectrum was finally concluded a year ago (of course, more auctions need to follow).
Much of the positive change that has taken place in South Africa’s ICT sector in the past 10 years has happened despite the ANC, not because of it. It was the country’s courts, not the ANC, that liberalised the sector, ushering in greater competition and ending the ANC’s failed policy of “managed liberalisation” that served only to protect Telkom from real competition.
It was the country’s courts, not the ANC, that liberalised the technology sector
Yet despite its age, the DA’s policy document makes several sensible proposals regarding the “reform of state actors” in the ICT space:
- Regarding Telkom, which is still 40.5% owned by the state, for example, the DA says the government should “resolve the inherent conflicts between its role in ICT policy development and regulation, and its interest as an investor in a major telecoms market player, by separating the wholesale and retail operations of Telkom into two separate companies and selling its shares in these”. This should have happened 20 years ago.
- Regarding Broadband Infraco, which owns a network of fibreoptic cables, the DA says it wants the company to be privatised. The ANC, on the other hand, wants it merged with Sentech, the broadcasting signal distributor, to create a state-owned digital infrastructure company. No such company is needed. Instead, Sentech should also be sold — possibly to a consortium of broadcasters that includes the SABC.
- Regarding the Post Office, which has been broken for years, the DA proposes outsourcing or privatising the postal service to ensure “practical and affordable delivery to all urban and rural communities”. It doesn’t set out how this should be done. But that the Post Office cannot continue in the way it has under ANC direction seems self-evident. The ANC’s plan to create a Postbank, a concept that makes little sense in a market well-served by commercial players, is unlikely to save the Post Office.
In other areas, the DA’s policy proposals make less sense. For example, the party has oddly leftist views of Usaasa, the government agency tasked with bridging the digital divide. Usaasa has been the site of huge corruption over the years. But rather than shutting it down, the DA wants to fix it. Ironically, the ANC is now moving to “disestablish” the agency. Shutting it down and finding other ways to provide telecom operators with incentives to deliver broadband in underserviced areas seems like a better approach.
The DA document, meanwhile, takes no firm position at first on the SABC, saying only that the party would hold public hearings to determine whether South Africa needs a public broadcaster. However, later it says the SABC should be broken up and the parts sold to the highest bidders. So which position is it?
Nowhere in the DA document is mention made of critical modern developments in tech, such as the growing tensions between the US and China over, among other things, technological superiority. This conflict looks set to define geopolitics for at least the next decade. Would the DA try to sit on the fence if it were elected to power, or would it choose a side? And, if so, whose?
And what about the DA’s approach to regulating the fast-developing field of artificial intelligence? And what about cryptocurrencies and their role in modern finance? And encryption in internet chat?
Voters have a right to know where the DA stands on these (and many other) tech issues, especially given that this is a political party with the stated intention of taking the reins of national government. At the very least, it’s time its ICT policy document was modernised — and then it should be kept fresh.
McLeod is editor of TechCentral
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