Invitation
to the official launch of the ICT Empowerment Charter Third
Working Draft
The
ICT Empowerment Charter Working Group (ICTWG) has great pleasure
in inviting you to the official launch of the third draft
of the sector’s BEE Charter at a media briefing on
Monday
10th May 2004
The
third draft will include the much-anticipated targets for
black economic empowerment (BEE) - correlating
with a one-day Indaba on the issue that will be held on Friday,
14 May at Vodaworld in Johannesburg.
| Venue: |
The
Johannesburg Country Club, Rainbow Room, Napier Road,
Parktown |
| Time: |
11:30
– 13:30 |
| R.S.V.P. |
Bongiwe
– tel: + 27 11 803 7456 or e-mail: bongiwe@tcf.co.za |
ICT
Invitation to the Indaba On the ICT Empowerment Charter
14th May 2004 - All day event
Vodaworld, Midrand, Gauteng
The
ICT Charter Working Group (WG) has pleasure in inviting you
to this crucial Indaba, the closing
part of an open and transparent country wide initiative to
inform and gather inputs from as broad a spectrum of people
as possible.
The
Indaba will consolidate inputs from the Provinces, Industry
Associations and other stakeholders, with the objective of
reaching sufficient consensus to finalise the Charter prior
to submission to Government.
Your
input to this phase ICT Charter will help shape
the future of the Information, Communications
& Electronics Technology (ICT-E) industry in South Africa.
Please do not miss this crucial
opportunity to contribute.
The
ICT Charter Draft 2 can be seen at: http://www.ictcharter.org.za/content/ICTCHARTER_Draft2.pdf
Your
assistance in extending this invitation to your colleagues
or executives from other companies, who would be interested,
would be greatly appreciated. However, seats are strictly
limited, and formal confirmation must be obtained from the
ICT Charter Working Group and/or Industry Associations to
ensure your presence.
The
audience is intended to be persons
involved in ICT –Information Communication Technology
– in which we include IT (Computers, networking, cabling,
software, hardware etc); telecommunications (telephones, PABX,
data, modems, transmission etc) and electronics (including
electronics and cabling, but excluding domestic and security
i.e. consumer applications).
Invited
persons will be from industry, provinces, Government
organizations, parastatals, learning institutions, industry
associations, sponsors etc.
Business size can be from the smallest
SMME to the largest parastatal, as all will be affected.
Job Titles include MD, CEO, CFO,
Procurement Officers, IT Managers, HR, etc.
There is no charge to invited guests.
Refreshments will be served.
Please RSVP as indicated below, as places
are very limited. We do apologise if this invitation reaches
you a little late, due to circumstances beyond our control.
Our team looks forward to meeting you and hearing your views.
Best regards
Dali Mpofu
ICT Charter WG Chair
RSVP
Kindly
confirm your attendance with the following:
Sector
Identification
- Broadcasting
- Information Technology
- Electronics
- Communications
- Government
Dietary
Requirements
- Halaal
- Kosher
- Vegetarian
- Other
Please forward your RSVP to
Sharon at eif@cssa.org.za
or Nisha Nisha@ita.org.za
For
further information speak to Sharon (011) 315 0483
ICT
CHARTER BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The
ICT Charter Working Group (WG) has pleasure in inviting you
to contribute to this final phase of a series of key events
which will help shape the future of the Information, Communications
& Electronics Technology (ICT-E) industry in South Africa.
Recognising
the importance of the issue of Black Empowerment in ICT-E,
and wishing to pre-empt a Government imposed Charter, Industry
& practitioner organisations have joined together to facilitate
the process of debating & formulating a proposal for the
Charter, for submission to Government. These organisations
include the Black Information Technology Forum BITF, Computer
Society of SA CSSA, Electronics Industry Federation EIF, IT
Association ITA, Information Industries SA IISA, the SA Communication
Forum SACF, and the SA Chamber of Business SACOB.
The
ICT Charter Working Group (WG) has as its objective the gathering
of inputs from all stakeholders, debating in open forum, collating
and submitting to Government, in order that the eventual issue
of the Charter will take into account the full opinions of
the ICT-E community.
The
Working Group has already made several strides in ensuring
that we in the ICT sector will boast a transformation blueprint
acceptable to the widest audience including all of our stakeholders,
the government, the broader South African population irrespective
of race, colour, gender, class or creed, and the investment
community for this country.
However,
merely from the above list of constituencies one can appreciate
the delicate job of balancing their separate interests in
fashioning any economic strategy. The enormity of a task has
never been an insurmountable obstacle to South Africans. The
uniqueness of our situation has always only been a catalyst
for the creativity and elegances of our solutions. The government’s
Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment strategy is a typical
example of this. It is neither totally voluntary nor completely
prescriptive. It provides no punitive sanctions for non-compliance,
with the only punishment being self imposed and curable economic
demise for “offenders”.
It
is against this background that the task of the Working Group
is unenviable complex and yet exciting. We have repeatedly
stated that our guiding principle in this process is INCLUSIVITY.
Everything else we do is subservient to this principle. When
deadlocks arise, as sure they will, the Working Group has
formally adopted the notion of “sufficient consensus.
This
first Working Draft was issued on the 9th March 2004, and
is a culmination of a deliberately protracted process which
was publicly launched on 25 June 2003 following extensive
behind-the scenes talks among the key industry associations
in the ICT sector. On the 16th and 17th September 2003, some
600 delegates representing a cross-section of our sector and
population gathered for two days at the Sandton Convention
Centre and set the tone for the current co-operative spirit
prevalent in this effort.
Earlier
this year, on 16 February 2004, a mini-summit was held at
Eskom Convention and opened by the Minister of Communications
where delegates focused their attention on the wider community
issues of bridging the digital divide and Corporate Social
Investment, specifically on how these items should be accommodated
in a broad-based ICT BEE Charter. Some of the creative proposals
offered from the floor went beyond the wildest expectations
of the conveners of these gatherings. Parallel to these, inputs
have been received from various interest groups representing
industry associations, individuals, multinationals, state-owned
enterprises, individual companies of all shapes and sizes,
conference goers, etc.
In
addition the Working Group decided to form an internal Research
Team with some full time staff and volunteers. The unit is
augmented by the services of two independent research agencies,
Empowerdex and Forge Ahead whose valuable input has been procured.
A
series of provincial road-shows took place during the months
of March and April. At the Roadshows, members of the Working
Group and Research team presented the background and current
content of the ICT Charter, and invited questions and discussion.
Inputs were all recorded and inputted to the process.
The
final event of this phase is the Indaba, scheduled for the
14th May 2004. This Indaba will correlate information from
the Roadshows, Industry Associations and other stakeholders,
and recommend after due discussion a sufficient consensus
to finalise the Charter prior to submission to Government
for negotiation.
Final
comments will be welcomed post Indaba until the 17th May 2004,
appropriately enough, World Telecoms Day. The final Draft
will then be handed to the Minister of Communications in a
ceremony at the Futurex Conference on the 18th May.
It
is expected that there will be negotiations with Government
for up to six weeks.
These
numerous processes are ALL aimed at feeding into a final document
which is still projected for finalization not later than 25
June 2004, being the anniversary of our first public announcement
of the process.
An
important aspect of the charter obviously relates to the post-adoption
implementation phase of the charter. We urge discussants to
give some serious thought to this issue. After all, the implementation
phase is likely to go into the next decade and will therefore
span a longer period than the policy formulation stage. Moreover,
the work of economical transformation will never be “finished”
in our lifetime. Continuous revision and improvement of our
socio-economic strategies is an inherent part of our evolving
new country.
Finally,
it remains for me to, on behalf of the Working Group, to urge
you to attend the Indaba, and to thank all those who have
directly and indirectly volunteered their time to this process.
Let all
of us in unison repeat our guiding cry:
“Hamba
Digital Divide! Woza Transformation!”
DALI
MPOFU
CHAIRPERSON:
ICT EMPOWERMENT CHARTER WORKING GROUP
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