The Ministry of Propaganda presents itself as the new Department of Communications
26 May 2014
President Jacob Zuma's deployment of Chief Spy, Minister Siyabonga Cwele, to communications is a chilling move. This is the very same Minister who spear-headed the introduction of the controversial ‘Secrecy Bill' and went to great lengths to cover-up the Nkandla scandal.
This move makes it clear that President Zuma is intent on controlling the message of his government's failures and bringing about the rebirth of the Apartheid-era Information Ministry.
Furthermore, the splitting of the Department of Communications into two ministries shows that the ANC clearly sees government's role in the communications sector as one of message control rather than economic enablement.
The re-emergence of a Department of Telecommunications and Postal services, not only takes South Africa back to the 1980s but with Siyabonga Cwele in charge, indicates government's intention to control the internet, its various platforms and electronic surveillance.
The new Communications Ministry's grouping of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the Government Communication and Information Services (GCIS), Brand SA and the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) shows the ANC government's desire to have increasing control of media outlets and propaganda.
The split shows that the ANC conflates communication content and communications infrastructure. Government ICT policy and entities should have nothing to do with content, apart from regulating in support of competition, consumer interests and economic growth.
This new split seems to have been done in haste and without reference to the Green Paper on ICT Policy or the work that has been done on technological convergence:
Telecommunications should be rolling out high-speed infrastructure, products and services; developing and implementing white space technologies and services as the nervous system for economic growth and better government service accessibility;
The SABC must be stripped down to being a state - not public - broadcaster and the commercial stations sold off to private enterprise.
Icasa should be a fully independent Chapter 9 institution. It should be with telecommunications and postal services in pursuit of communications convergence and in support of economic ingenuity and consumer-friendly competitiveness that will see South Africa become an ICT empowered nation of the world.
Minister Cwele's lack of prior experience in the telecoms sector, aggravated by his security focus, could be an inhibiting factor in a sector that needs to support free thinkers, mavericks and dynamic entrepreneurs.
In addition, Yunus Carrim's exclusion from this portfolio and the cabinet, confirms President Zuma's desire to place his henchmen at the forefront of our communications.
We now have a clear indication that President Zuma's second term in office will be fortified by secrecy and more cover-ups. With President Zuma's loyalist on the one hand and propaganda machinery on the other, we can expect more gate-keeping and general interference of media freedom.
The DA will not stand by while the ghost of Connie Mulder, the Apartheid government's Information Minister, makes a comeback 20 years into our democracy.
Statement issued by Marian Shinn MP, DA Shadow Minister of Communications, May 26 2014
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