Plans to connect 195 South African rural municipalities with broadband won’t be interrupted if the country’s universal service access agency’s chief executive Zami Nkosi is forced to step down.
This is what Nkosi told ITWeb Africa in front of delegates at an Intel Africa Broadband and USF Leaders Forum in Cape Town on Wednesday.
South Africa’s former communications minister Dina Pule is being dragged to court by the country’s Special Investigating Unit (SIU) over allegations that she hired Nkosi irregularly in his CEO role for the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (Usaasa) parastatal.
SIU alleges Pule went beyond her powers in hiring Nkosi and that she overlooked other shortlisted candidates for the job. The SIU wants Nkosi to leave his post.
Nkosi joined Usaasa last year. The agency’s role is to help roll-out universal connectivity with government and private sector partnerships. The agency is also handling South Africa’s digital migration process.
Nkosi further hit out at corruption allegations levelled at Usaasa regarding a R500 million deal with mobile network Cell C to upgrade of the communications network at eMalahleni Municipality.
He told ITWeb Africa that the deal being referred to in the media is worth “R21 million and not R500 million.”
But he told ITWeb Africa that work will continue as per normal at Usaasa whether he is there or not.
"Whether I'm here or not here, the National Development Plan (NDP) will be there," Nkosi told ITWeb Africa in front of delegates after his talk.
The NDP is South Africa’s 2030 plan to boost economic growth. Broadband access is one key aspect to the NDP plan.
Usaasa has put together a plan to connect 195 underserviced rural municipalities broadband rollout by 2019. The agency; though, is awaiting approval from government for the plan.
“We are at the tail-end of finalising this master plan," Nkosi said.
"This master plan is going to tell the president which towns will be down when," he added.
Nkosi also referred to statistics from the National Baseline Gap Findings that say 86.4% of South Africa has national access to 2G, 65% have 3G access and 49% have public broadband access.
"People in rural South Africa want to have access to ICT services," said Nkosi in his talk.
"There is high demand but affordability is a challenge," he added.
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