The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has noted and condemns the attempts by Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi to utilise a Ministerial policy directive to subvert South African laws, in order to allow the Space X and Elon Musk owned Starlink to operate in our country.
In an obvious attempt to avoid the Parliament of South Africa which is where the necessary amendments to achieve his mischief should be processed, Malatsi has presumed upon himself the powers to implement what is substantively an amendment to the Electronic Communications Act (ECA) and the ICT Sector Code. He has done this through a Ministerial policy directive which allows foreign satellite network operators to by-pass BEE-ownership requirements using Equity Equivalents.
The ridiculous policy directive means that companies such as Starlink would no longer need to comply with the 30% local ownership requirements which protect our local telecommunications industry, and these could be substituted by less transformative substitutes that don’t speak to ownership, such as mere donations of Musk’s infrastructure as he deems fit.
In doing this, Malatsi is using a policy directive as a method to circumvent the law-making powers of Parliament. The attempt to coerce the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) to comply with this illegal instruction which is not consistent with the ECA and ICT Sector Code, is a clear undermining of ICASA’s institutional autonomy.
The EFF has had numerous engagements with mobile network operators and interest groups within the telecommunications industry who have all confirmed our concerns that Starlink poses a threat to jobs in the industry due to its remote operational nature. Even greater, it poses a security concern considering the hostility of Elon Musk against our nation. For an unrepentant racist and megalomaniac like Elon Musk to enter the telecommunications market in South Africa, granting him possible control of infrastructure in the long term, is irresponsible.
In a Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies meeting held on the 27th of May 2025, wherein Malatsi was called to account when he first made these proposals, ICASA itself expressed its discomfort on the legality of the Minister’s directives, while the Minister fumbled and evaded direct questions on the legality of his attempts.
It is clear that Ministers in the GNU utilise the festive period to engage in unlawful activities and to undermine our constitutional democracy. If it is not the ANC Minister Senzo Mchunu unilaterally dissolving the Political Killings Task Team on New Year’s Eve, it is DA Minister Solly Malatsi gazetting policy directives to ICASA so that Elon Musk, who lies about a genocide in South Africa to leverage business interests, can get access to our telecommunications industry.
The EFF warns Malatsi that if he and the DA have already made guarantees to Musk, whether to secure funding or support from the fascist Trump-administration, then they will have to go back and return whatever illicit resources they secured with the promise of trading South Africa’s sovereignty.
The EFF will pursue all mechanisms in Parliament, in the courts, and on the streets to ensure that his illegal directives are not implemented. The EFF calls on ICASA to refuse to implement what is an overreach into the regulatory space by a Minister who has sold his soul to the highest bidder and wants to sell our country along with it.
The EFF promotes environmental justice and sustainable development.
Riff Raff
Fun South African Fact: The first successful heart transplant was in a Cape Town hospital
Dez Bonbon
Fun South African Fact: The South African Rovos Rail is considered the most luxurious train in the world.