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Johannesburg - South Africa’s government is moving one step forward in formulating a technology policy aimed at helping accelerate the country’s flagging economic growth.
On Friday, South Africa’s Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services Siyabonga Cwele gazetted a discussion paper containing options for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) policies that are being reviewed.
South Africa currently does not have a holistic ICT policy unlike many of its neighbouring African countries such as Kenya, where strides have been made in driving up internet access to over 30 million Kenyans, according to figures from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA).
As a result, South Africa’s government is moving to close this gap by putting together an ICT policy that supports the National Development Plan’s outline to ensure technology underpins the country’s development by 2030.
Government’s ICT policy review process started in 2012 and the options paper milestone is the last stage before the submission of final recommendations to government and the tabling of the draft white paper, a policy position statement of government.
Parts of the options paper discusses aspects such as universal access to affordable communications services, opening up the ICT market to new entrants, spectrum policy, the possible role of the post office in the converged environment, and even cybercrime.
“We are making steady progress in ensuring that we develop progressive policies that will ensure that we are on par with the world’s best practices in the deployment, use and regulation of this fast changing sector,” said Cwele in a statement.
“We need to ensure that the ICT sector contributes in the radical transformation of our country by contributing to the achievement of the 5% economic growth and modernising the way government delivers services and how citizens access these services,” he added.
South Africa's economy is forecast to struggle to grow more than 2% this year, according to analysts.
‘Critically important to get right’
Adrian Schofield, director and vice president of the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA), told Fin24 that government’s ICT policy plan is “a move in the right direction”.
Schofield said he has also made submissions on behalf of IITPSA on the ICT policy documents and that his organisation intends reviewing the options paper as well.
“Anything that can lead to an improvement in the government’s policies in respect of ICTs is a move in the right direction. It is critically important for South Africa to get this right and to get it right quickly, as we are fast losing ground in the economic and social development stakes to the detriment of our whole country,” Schofield told Fin24.
“We only have to see the progress being made in the other three corners of Africa - Nigeria, Egypt and Kenya - to see how much faster they are moving to leverage the benefits of applying ICTs to uplift the delivery of education, health, welfare and administrative services,” Schofield said.
Government has set a deadline of 15 January 2015 for written responses to the discussion paper.
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