7
Apr
2009
Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri has died
Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri - Born 18 September 1937, died 6 April 2009
Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri has died last night after being admited to Pretoria’s Kloof Medi-Clinic Hospital.
This is sad news for her friends and family, but good news for the country. It is no secret that many people in the IT community have wanted Matsepe-Casaburri removed from office for a very long time. Anybody who has any sort of internet access know the very sad state of affairs when it comes to the handling of this countries communications infrastructure. We have some of the most expensive internet access in the world, with profiteering reaching record heights. It is cheaper to fly to Hong Kong, download what you want to an external hard drive, and fly back then to download the equivalent here.
To quote Toby Shapshak:
Telecommunications is absolutely vital for any country, more so for developing countries. Developing countries need the telecommunications infrastructure at a good price to be able to help educate the masses, and be competitive in the ever shrinking on-line business world. If India can do it, whycan’t we?… Oh, yes, greed!
Granted things have been incrimentally improving, however we have a long way to go.
Heres hoping Ivy’s replacement puts the country ahead of parastatal profiteering.
Edit: It seems that there are a lot of people out there who share this view, even mainstream media. Case in point see this article in “The Times”.
