The South African ‘Information Society’, 1994–2008: Problems with Policy, Legislation, Rhetoric and Implementation

Abstract

This article closely examines the political economy of information and communication technology (ICT) adoption in the ‘new’ South Africa. Despite Government's emphasis on the importance of ICTs in fostering equitable growth, enshrined in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) documents, these policies have largely failed to deliver on promises of a more equitable society.1Indeed, wealth remains in the hands of an elite minority. South Africa ranks 121st out of 177 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI).2 The trend of this index in South Africa has been downward since 1995 and decreased by 4.67 per cent over the 2000 to 2005 period.3 Worryingly, unofficial unemployment stands at over 40 per cent.4 Intriguingly, despite this apparent lack of impact of ICTs on development indicators in South Africa, the ANC Government continues to embrace them. With this in mind, this article argues that the technological determinism in associating ICTs with development is a potentially fatal one and is cause for concern. This determinism is explored through the lenses of competing, contradictory and inconsistent Government views on ICT policy, the digital divide, development and a case study of the cellphone. 1 P. Bond, Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa (London, Pluto, 2000); P. Bond, Talk Left, Walk Right: South Africa's Frustrated Global Reforms (Pietermaritzburg, UKZN, 2004); A. Desai, ‘Karl Marx's the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon: The Coming of Power of Napoleon: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Nelson-Mbeki’ (video recording), E.G. Malherbe Library, Howard College, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2004; A. Habib and V. Padayachee, ‘Economic Policy and Power Relations in South Africa's Transition to Democracy’, World Development, 28, 2 (February 2000). 2 These statistics are derived from the United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2007/2008 (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 231. A possible explanation for this trend is offered by Bond as being a result of the geopolitics of socio-economic disparities in South Africa. This, he says, is due largely to the effects of neo-liberalism, which have brought about a deviation from the concerns of the black majority of South Africans. See Bond, Talk Left, Walk Right. 3 Derived from United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2007/2008, p. 236. 4 Official unemployment stands at 23.1 per cent. See Statistics South Africa, Community Survey, Basic Results: Municipalities’ (Pretoria, Statistics South Africa, 2008), p. v. The difference between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ indicators is that the former includes only those who were searching for employment up to seven days before the most recent census. The latter expands this to include those who had been searching for employment for the four weeks prior to the most recent census.