Khumbudzo Ntshavheni (Grade C+) - The Mail & Guardian

Department

Communications and Digital Technologies

key objectives

1. Ensure digital transmission migration: ongoing
2. Establish an artificial intelligence center: In progress
3. Digitize the government: In process

Analysis

More than a year has passed since President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed Khumbudzo Ntshavheni as minister of communications and digital technologies, and while there have been victories, other projects are still in the works.

South Africa’s digital migration is 11 years behind schedule. Last year, Khumbudzo appointed a steering committee to speed up the country’s long-delayed migration from analog to digital. The deadline was January and that was not met. The deadline was moved to March, which was also missed.

The department’s goal is to reach 100% Internet access by 2024.

On November 30, Ntshavheni launched the South African Artificial Intelligence Institute for universities, research institutions and companies to work together to implement solutions to some of Africa’s problems. The institute is being established in partnership with the Johannesburg Business School of the University of Johannesburg and Tshwane University of Technology. It will open in 2023.

There were also plans to digitize the government and as a result, Digitech was unveiled. This platform is a digital distribution service developed, maintained and operated by the government. Its purpose is to centralize products and applications developed by small, medium and micro-enterprises.
In September, Ntshavheni threatened to declare the SABC board in default for reckless dealings. This comes after he failed to submit an income enhancement plan in June of this year. The public broadcaster incurred a loss of nearly 1 billion rand. According to SABC’s financial statements for 2020-21, the public broadcaster had a net loss of R530 million compared to the previous year.