Chair, I would like to thank all the hon members of the House and the parties that have supported the passage of this amending Bill.
In part, the reasons for us going this route, have nothing to do with the objections that have been mentioned, for example by the opposition member Dene Smuts. Hon members will remember that we changed because everyone had asked that we do certain things in our policies and in our laws. These include such things as number portability, pre-selection and allowing everyone to provide facilities.
Ka Sesotho, ke sa ntse ke eme. [In Sesotho we say: I am still standing.]
"Ek wag nog". [I am still waiting.]
They have not provided those facilities in the private sector. It is the failure by the private sector to provide those facilities that have created the kind of problems that have been mentioned. Now that they are doing so, there are instances of encouragement.
The most important thing for us to do is to make sure that this country, which is a developmental state, pays attention not only to two sectors of our population - the business and urban sector - but also to the rural areas. Nobody has been paying attention to the rural areas.
We know that the cost of communication also has something to do with the bandwidth that goes out of or into a country, who controls it and what their costs are. If that bandwidth is high, the cost will always stay high. This is what many developing countries have found out and we can learn from those developing countries.
Look at India. Because their bandwidth was provided by people from outside India, particularly for the businesses of the United States, the prices came down. But in any other country that is not the case, and we have proof of that. This resource is necessary in order to be able to extend ICTs to rural areas.
The second area is that there were conditions placed on Telkom when it was first partly privatised, and those conditions favoured the private sector. I could not change the shareholders' agreement between Telkom and the then parties that were involved in Telkom. Neither could I unilaterally change the shareholders' agreement between Telkom and Vodacom.
Today we hear that it is government or it is me or this part of government that did that. In fact, what pushed for this situation was that everyone in government had been told that it was important that the private sector took over. But, we saw what the private-sector-driven policies and practices have done with regard to the cutting off of telecommunications in many of our rural areas or underserviced areas.
The hon Pieterse asked whether Infraco is the only way to intervene? It certainly is not, but is a strategic way for government to intervene. Since we have taken that policy decision to have government intervene by setting up a company like Infraco, many other companies want to come to the fore because there is actually quite a lot of business that can run on this infrastructure.
So, the intention is not only to have Infraco, but particularly to make sure that international bandwidth, which is one of the reasons why our costs are high, can actually be brought down.
I now come to the issue surrounding the licensing conditions. The Bill certainly does not make any difference in the relationship. It is Icasa that will issue the licence for Infraco and for any other entity that government deems a strategic intervention. It is Icasa, and not the Minister, that sets the conditions of that licence. So there is no reason to fear excessive intervention in the work of Icasa. On that basis, Icasa itself has supported this Bill.
I would like to say that I would be very happy if the House could pass this Bill so that we can get down to the business of making ICTs possible or available to the most disadvantaged people of our country, whom these have not been able to reach. Thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.
Bill read a second time.