That is why the Alliance has always called for a strong developmental state, which can undertake interventions that are crucial for development. One of those interventions is the provision of telecommunications to poor households and communities. We could accept increased private provision of services to business and the well-off, if it helped pay for increased services for the majority. Improving telecommunications to the poor is important in a variety of ways. It helps people participate more actively in the economy.
Studies show that people in households with telephones find jobs much more easily.
Furthermore, telecommunications open the door to substantial improvements in health care and education. And finally, it is critical for families and friends to communicate - which is particularly important in our country, where apartheid scattered so many people far and wide. In short, the extension of telecommunications to the poor must form a central part of any development strategy. But the privatisation process has undermined efforts in that direction, rather than strengthening them. The Telkom experience underlines something else - the way that government has embarked on all kinds of creative forms of privatisation, convincing itself that because it is not simply selling off public assets, it is not undermining the state.