STARLINK WARS

THE Starlink Wars have begun. 

This after the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies summoned Communications Minister Solly Malatsi to explain a plan to bypass Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) for SA-born billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service.

Last week, Malatsi issued new policy directives aimed at easing BEE requirements for licensing satellite services in a government gazette. 

It came just days after Stellenbosch billionaire Johann Rubert said that “every little police station needs Starlink” during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s White House meeting with US counterpart Donald Trump last Wednesday. 

Committee Chairperson Khusela Diko said: “The Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies has invited Minister Solly Malatsi and the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies to appear before the committee and brief on the recently gazetted policy directions.”

Diko noted that the recently “gazetted policy directions appear to be in contravention of the Electronic Communications Act and in favour of low earth orbit satellite provider SpaceX”.

Musk had previously expressed opposition to the country’s BEE regulations and claimed that the only reason his company had not been granted an operating licence in South Africa was because he was not black.

Relaxing the BEE laws has been criticised by several opposition parties, including Build One South Africa (BOSA).

BOSA Deputy Leader Hlazo Webster: “This is not transformation, it’s capitulation. The message being sent is that if you are a powerful foreign billionaire, you can sidestep South Africa’s laws while our local businesses are forced to jump hoops.

“What begins as a special concession ends in state capture.”

Meanwhile, South Africa’s Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Gayton McKenzie, said he’d welcome Musk and Starlink.

He tweeted: “Your ideology is more important than the very people you claim to serve. Starlink will give greater and cheaper access in a country with the most expensive data prices.”

But former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela likened the situation to a Trojan horse, saying: “The benefit of things is not always measured in money… Not saying this is the case. Let’s examine costs and benefits beyond rands and cents.”