So much for getting rid of pit latrines. The government’s latest pie in the sky is to give every household 10GB of free data every month.
Don’t worry about consistent electricity supply or water and sanitation — the ANC has found a new unfulfillable promise in the hope of staving off decline.
On the plus side, it is an appropriate strategy for communications & digital technologies minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, whose only focus appears to have been doing what the country agreed to have completed by 2015: freeing up the so-called digital dividend. This set of frequencies is still being used by the free-to-air TV stations and there is mounting evidence that the failure to prepare for this in previous years will see the poorest of the rural poor left without television signals.
Admittedly, Ntshavheni is coming off a low base after her predecessor, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, spent three years in the portfolio trying to bend the laws of physics to redefine smartphones as televisions to rescue the SABC. Now Ntshavheni wants the government to give every household 10GB a month.
Without laughing, let’s stop and ask: who will pay? And where in the depleted, state-captured economy will money be found? The basic income grant already scares economists.
"Data has become a new utility like water and electricity that our home needs," she said during last week’s debate on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address.
Ntshavheni oversaw the destruction of Denel, another part of SA’s economy
"Every household, whether rich or poor, whether employed or unemployed, will have access [to] 10GB of data per month without failure," she said.
I laughed at "without failure".
The ruling party still can’t get water to communities in need, can’t keep the lights on (literally) and an education NGO has to go to court to force the government to get rid of pit latrines. When the ANC government can provide all of the other essential services — which are classified as human rights and it is constitutionally required to deliver — Ntshavheni might have a point.
But more worrying, as I pointed out last week, is that Ntshavheni has been implicated in state capture in acting chief justice Raymond Zondo’s report for her board role in the destruction of armaments firm Denel. From a world-class going concern, Denel is now another wreck of a state-owned enterprise unable to pay salaries.
Ntshavheni oversaw the destruction of this apartheid dinosaur, helping the Guptas destroy another part of SA’s economy. Tenderpreneurs must be rubbing their rent-seeking hands with glee. If you thought R14bn in looted personal protective equipment funds in 2020 was a big figure, wait until they get into the contracts to supply 10GB.
With Ntshavheni in charge, what could go wrong?
Shapshak is editor-in-chief of Stuff Studios (stuff.co.za) and publisher of Scrolla.Africa
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