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Communications and Digital Technology Minister, Solly Malatsi
Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi has sought to clarify that the Electronic Communications Act and the ICASA Act give him the authority to issue directives that align with national law.
Malatsi was responding to concerns raised by the African National Congress regarding a Gazette published on Friday, which the party believes introduces policy directions that exceed the minister’s legislative authority.
The directive permits companies such as Elon Musk’s Starlink to bypass the local ownership requirement through alternative compliance mechanisms.
Malatsi elaborates, “There is no attempt to amend legislation here, we are dealing about regulations. There is no instruction to ICASA here. We are saying to ICASA, the policy direction stipulates that, urgently consider, which means that they must be able to engage with what I have tabulated in the policy direction, and consider that is what is provided for in law. So, if people don’t like what is provided for in law, or they don’t like whoever has the responsibility of taking decisions in enforcing the empowerment laws of the country. That is the struggle they must reconcile with.”
Today we gazetted the final policy direction on the Equity Equivalent Investment Programme in the ICT sector, following a draft published in May. The purpose of this policy direction is to ensure that the full scope of economic empowerment is properly recognised and applied.
We… pic.twitter.com/tdPgZlNInK
— SollyMalatsi (@SollyMalatsi) December 12, 2025
