South Africa’s communications minister has directed the country’s telecoms regulator to amend its regulations to allow international players, like Elon Musk’s Starlink, to enter the SA market using a different set of empowerment rules. In a notice gazetted on Friday, minister Solly Malatsi directed the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to “urgently consider alignment of the regulations in respect of the limitations of control and equity ownership by historically disadvantaged groups (HDG) and the application of the ICT sector code, with the amended broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) ICT sector code”. This comes after Malatsi’s department in May gazetted a policy directive on the role of equity equivalent investment programmes (EEIPs) in the ICT sector “as a mechanism to accelerate broadband access”.
Since then, Malatsi has been under fire over the move, largely seen as a way to allow Elon Musk’s company to operate in SA without having to give equity in terms of BEE. At present, the rules around who can acquire a licence to provide electronic communications services or to operate a network require a minimum of 30% shares to be in the hands of historically disadvantaged individuals. EEIPs allow qualifying multinationals to meet empowerment obligations through alternatives to 30% ownership, “such as investing in local suppliers, enterprise and skills development, job creation, infrastructure support, research and innovation, digital inclusion initiatives and funding for SMMEs”.
Malatsi said he had weighed the views and submissions from various telecoms industry players and other stakeholders. Starlink’s parent company SpaceX came out in support of Malatsi’s directive in August.
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