Life after Poison Ivy
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17 April 2009
After 493 steps backwards SA needs leaps to fix legacy of the poisonous one. |
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SA’s likely next president, Jacob Zuma, will soon have the difficult task of appointing a cabinet. It is crucial that he installs a competent communications minister to run what has become one of the most critical portfolios in government.
Communications minister and anti-apartheid struggle stalwart Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, who died last week, was by all accounts a dedicated and well-meaning politician who had genuine concern for the country’s poor.
However, as leader of one of SA’s most important ministerial portfolios, she was a disaster. She cost the country billions of rand in investment and kept telecommunications prices high by protecting incumbent operators at the expense of consumers.
Matsepe-Casaburri never fully trusted the free market to deliver affordable telephony to the masses. The decisions that flowed from this distrust crimped the sector’s development.
She stubbornly refused to open the market to full competition, insisting on sticking to the discredited policy of “m...
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