Mr. Manthi, Even South Africans know that your proposals are a mathematical imposibility (see article below from SA). Economics teach us that the only way to bring down cost is not by owning but by creating a competitive environment. All we need from the cables is bandwidth to create wealth. Our current problems in Africa emanate from our past mistakes with respects to our view on economic development. If those you call Nyangaus refuse to buy your flowers, your coffee, your tea and protect their people from travelling to our part of the world, we shall all perish. The world is a small place where we all must share that which is available. If you take a nap as we did in the 19th Century, someone else will take advantage of you. In essence we should blame ourselves for all that happened in the past and that way we shall approach the future with love and wisdom. When you blame someone else, you fill yourself with hate and darkness. Below find the article for your perusal. Bitange Ndemo. 12 September 2007 Cable policy slammed BY PAUL VECCHIATTO , ITWEB CAPE TOWN CORRESPONDENT • [ Johannesburg, 12 September 2007 ] - Opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), have railed against communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casburri's stance on undersea cable ownership, saying she wants to control telecommunications. They were reacting to the minister's speech, delivered earlier this week at Telkom's Southern African Telecommunications Networks and Applications Conference, held in Mauritius. She said government would require all undersea cables landing here to be majority-owned by South African companies. Matsepe-Casaburri also announced that guidelines would be drawn up and they would be consistent with SA's foreign policy, and take into account the country's security. DA communications spokesperson Dene Smuts said the Mauritius “clarification” on undersea cables confirms the Department of Communications' (DOC) desire to get a slice of the pie and to control telecommunications. “Her insistence that all cables landing here must be majority South African-owned is a mathematical impossibility if each African country makes similar demands. It is also contrary to SA's interests to prevent the landing of the capacity we need,” she said. Suzanne Vos, IFP communications spokesperson, said: “This kind of power politics has to stop. The country desperately needs bandwidth to meet its own economic development objectives and to ensure the guarantees signed by the minister for the 2010 Soccer World Cup are met.” Vos added: “It is no wonder that public enterprises minister Alec Erwin has stepped in as the country's alternative communications minister, because the incumbent can't get things done.” She also referred Matsepe-Casaburri to the Electronic Communications Act that effectively brings government interference in the telecommunications sector to an end. Smuts said the DOC's championing of the Nepad ICT Broadband Infrastructure Network has already blocked the East African Submarine Cable System cable. “The minister said in Mauritius that any cables landing here would have to become part of the Nepad Network. That network will operate under a protocol that gives each signed-up African government a controlling golden share. “She has already told her DG [Lyndall Shope-Mafole, DOC director-general], who is the driving force behind the protocol, to take SA's landing guidelines to the interim intra-governmental assembly.” Smuts concluded by saying: “No one can make head or tail of the minister's thinking, or her DG's initiatives. The only thing that is clear is that both SA telecoms ministries-public enterprises and communications are reinstating state telecoms against the tide of liberalisation and modern economic trends.” Vincent Gore, who was communications spokesperson for the Independent Democrats, refused to comment as he was in the process of crossing the floor to the African National Congress.

Kai, This has nothing to do with SA. It is Kenya's job to protect Kenya and not SA. If Kenya does not want the SA satellites broadcasting in Kenya, they can block it. All SA is saying is that if there any cables landing in SA, it should be majority owned by SAfricans. Any African country can do the same.

And yes any cable landing in SA (or Kenya) is the national asset of SA (or Kenya). Every SA (or Kenyan) should have access to it. And judging by the pricing of some of these cable, it is unlikely that majority of SA (or Kenyans) will be able to afford it.

Shouldn't SA (or Kenyan) governments be concerned about the pricing and therefore ownership of these cables?

Yes - these cables are national assets. Let me see - who owns the cables entering the Federal Republic of Germany? Germany of course. Why should you then, a German national, deny the South African Government of deciding who should own these cables.

Remember that SA has the experience of SAT3.

Joe

On 9/13/07, Kai U. Wulff <kai.wulff@kdn.co.ke> wrote:

...

Since when is International Connectivity a national asset?

A cable comes, you don't like the price you don't buy .. Why did nobody insist on SA ownership of the Satellites that are broadcasting