Minister Nyanda: Beneath the accomplished veneer lies organizational chaos

The Democratic Alliance (DA) notes that the Minister of Communications, Siphiwe Nyanda, appears to have launched a media campaign to paint himself and his performance at the helm of the Department in a more positive light. This follows on persistent reports of mismanagement within the Department and its entities, and rumours that the Minister may well be redeployed.

These attempts by the Minister to conceal his Department's failings beneath the veneer of good governance are misleading and not supported by the facts. Rhetoric only counts for so much - scratch below the surface and it quickly becomes apparent that the DoC is in serious disarray. The Minister needs to be held to account for this. On the one hand he needs to be removed from his cabinet position; on the other, he needs to explain to the South African public what went wrong. There are six fundamental problems facing the Department:

The financial and management woes of the SABC

The SABC's 2009/10 annual report indicated that the public broadcaster had failed to meet the requirements for the R1 billion guarantee from National Treasury. The SABC had been required to boost revenue, cut costs and reduce capital expenditure, but the annual report showed that it had failed to do so. Constant changes to the management structure of the SABC have done nothing to alleviate the situation. Although they received an unqualified audit report, the Auditor-General found that R187 million was listed as irregular expenditure.

The poor management of Sentech

The Minister has indicated that Sentech is on the mend, when this is patently not the case. Sentech has been running at a loss for so many years now that it cannot be salvaged, as the Minister believes, by continuing to pump more public funds into it. The only viable solution here is privatization. In fact, in Sentech's 2008 annual report, the chairperson of the board indicated that, unless the Minister as the main shareholder would allow Sentech to raise funds on the capital market, Sentech would continue to run as a going concern. To date the Minister has ignored this suggestion.

The various scandals concerning the minister himself

The Minister has been involved in a number of scandals since taking office. Replies to DA parliamentary questions revealed that Nyanda had spent millions on extravagant car purchases as well as stays at luxury hotels. He has also been involved in a number of tender scandals, even though the Public Protector did not find that there was a breach in supply chain management regulations. He was also reprimanded by the President for his public support of dismissed Transnet Freight CEO Siyabonga Gama, and was found to be in breach of the Executive Members Ethics Act.

The Department's poor annual report

The Department received a qualified audit this year, for the first time in five years. According to the Auditor-General, the main reasons for the qualified audit were lack of leadership and fruitless, wasteful and irregular expenditure. This served to underline the pronouncement of acting DG Harold Wesso, who described the Department as a "sinking ship". The Portfolio Committee of Communications in unison issued a memorandum to the Minister last week expressing the committee's severe concern with the manner in which the Department is being run.

The Minister's deteriorating relationship with his former DG

Nyanda has also been involved in a public brawl with the former DG of the Department, Mamodupi Mohala, whom he allegedly dismissed for failing to approve tenders awarded to companies linked to him. This is a matter that requires further investigation as the reasons for the dismissal of Mohala are still not clear, since the case was resolved out of court.

Failure to fulfil the Department's core mandate

The DoC is mandated to develop ICT policies and legislation; ensure the development of ICT infrastructure; strengthen the role of ICASA, and increase the oversight of the SOEs responding to it. The Minister has failed to achieve meaningful progress on all counts and in fact, managed to spend only 11% of the budget awarded to his Department last year. The issue of digital migration is but one case in point: In 2008, South Africa adopted the European Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial (DVB-T) standard. The ICT industry indicated that they had spent over R700 million in preparation for adopting the standard. Sentech also invested R500 million. However, earlier this year the Department indicated that it might be adopting the Japanese standard for digital migration instead, which is of a poorer quality. The Minister has yet to indicate which standard will be adopted, with the 2011 deadline for digital migration fast approaching.

It is clear that the Minister has failed to meet the core requirements of his job. The fact that the situation is so dire in each of the above cases means that the Minister - the person responsible for leading the department - has failed. He now needs to be held to account. Thus, the DA believes that, if the Cabinet is reshuffled, Minister Nyanda needs to be removed from his position. He also needs to account to the South African public for the mismanagement detailed above, and so the DA will use the Minister's next appearance before the portfolio committee to put these concerns to him and ask what he intends to do about them.

Statement issued by Natasha Michael MP, Democratic Alliance Shadow Minister of Communications, October 18 2010

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