{"id":94415,"date":"2025-12-17T19:15:47","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T19:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2"},"modified":"2026-01-07T17:14:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T17:14:58","slug":"malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2","title":{"rendered":"Malatsi defends ICT policy directive amid political pushback"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi says opposition to his new policy directive on easing Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) requirements for foreign ICT investors is politically motivated.<\/p>\n<p>Malatsi&#8217;s directive, published last week, creates a new pathway for foreign investors in the ICT sector\u2014such as tech billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink. It allows these entities to invest locally through methods other than the traditional requirement of selling a 30% equity stake to local players.<\/p>\n<p>The Minister argues that critics of the directive are ignoring key factors, most notably the requirement for full alignment with the country\u2019s existing empowerment policies.<\/p>\n<p>The directive has faced significant resistance, not only from opposition parties in Parliament but also from within the Ministry itself, via Deputy Minister Mondli Gungubele.<\/p>\n<p>The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) condemned the move, labelling it an attempt to use ministerial powers to subvert South African laws specifically to allow Starlink to operate.<\/p>\n<p>The MK Party said the directive disregards the role of Parliament in policy development.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe opposition to the policy directive is definitely political expediency, grounded in ignoring the fact that it calls for full alignment with the country\u2019s economic empowerment framework, as expressed not only in the B-BBEE Act but also in ICT sector codes, which provide for equity-equivalence investment programmes as a pathway for investment in South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Malatsi also says public submissions were overwhelmingly in favour of the directive, which he has asked the regulator ICASA to consider<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi says opposition to his new policy directive on easing Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) requirements for foreign ICT investors is politically motivated. Malatsi&#8217;s directive, published last week, creates a new pathway for foreign investors in the ICT sector\u2014such as tech billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink. It allows [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":94414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-94415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Malatsi defends ICT policy directive amid political pushback - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi says opposition to his new policy directive on easing Bla ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Malatsi defends ICT policy directive amid political pushback\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi says opposition to his new policy directive on easing Bla ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-17T19:15:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-07T17:14:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/12\/sm_1765986982.973083.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Malatsi defends ICT policy directive amid political pushback\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-17T19:15:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-07T17:14:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2\"},\"wordCount\":264,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/12\/sm_1765986982.973083.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/malatsi-defends-ict-policy-directive-amid-political-pushback-2\",\"name\":\"Malatsi defends ICT policy directive amid political pushback - 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