JOHANNESBURG, Dec 12 (Reuters) – South Africa will amend rules on local Black ownership requirements after a directive from the telecommunications minister, which could pave the way for satellite-internet companies, including Elon Musk’s Starlink, to operate in the country.<\/p>\n
Starlink’s parent company SpaceX wrote to the telecoms regulator ICASA last year saying that local shareholding laws were a significant barrier and that it should rethink the 30% ownership<\/a> requirement for licensees.<\/p>\n Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n South Africa’s Electronic Communications Act requires foreign-owned communications licensees to sell 30% of equity in their local subsidiaries to historically disadvantaged groups – a provision criticised by Starlink and other companies.<\/p>\n In his policy direction published in a government gazette on Friday, Communications Minister Solly Malatsi said so-called “equity equivalent” investment programmes in the sector should count toward empowerment goals.<\/p>\n The policy changes will allow communications companies, including Starlink, to bypass the 30% equity requirement, instead recognising investments in things like digital infrastructure.<\/p>\n “The final policy direction reinforces the need for regulatory parity. It does not favour any entity, bypass the Electronic Communications Act, or weaken transformation,” Malatsi said.<\/p>\n “This alignment will help attract more investment, support meaningful transformation and improve the lives of South Africans, especially those in rural and underserved communities who still lack access to high-speed internet.”<\/p>\n Malatsi first proposed the changes in May and drew criticism from opposition political parties and some lawmakers that he was going too far to accommodate foreign businesses like Starlink.<\/p>\n But 90% of public comments on the draft changes were in favour of the policy, while a minority raised concerns about possible dominance by large or foreign operators.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, South Africa rejected a claim by Elon Musk<\/a> that his Starlink satellite company could not operate in the country because he is not Black.<\/p>\n Reporting by Nqobile Dludla. Editing by Jane Merriman<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n Nqobile is a Johannesburg-based reporter covering the South African retail, telecom and tech sectors. She has been a journalists for about 10 years. She joined Reuters in 2015 and has covered a variety of beats ranging from pharma, health to property and banking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JOHANNESBURG, Dec 12 (Reuters) – South Africa will amend rules on local Black ownership requirements after a directive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[82772,82519,2786,82703,82517,93089,82794,82500,82995,82543,82538,82545,83805,82546,82535,82549,82541,82550,82776,82553,82536,88447,83806,82555,82777,82547,82539,82557,82537,82540,82554,82552,108192,82548,82551,18,55396,82578,82520,32356,45748,19,17,4164,82565,82524,93088,83808,83809,82508,83810,83002,82964,93087,113136,102694,17588,95733,133,451,83004,753,82999,83005,30150,107,84458,84459,102693],"class_list":{"0":"post-230632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-afr","9":"tag-amers","10":"tag-asia","11":"tag-asxpac","12":"tag-ceeu","13":"tag-cisc","14":"tag-clj","15":"tag-cmpny","16":"tag-coms","17":"tag-destabn","18":"tag-destabx","19":"tag-destafa","20":"tag-destafn","21":"tag-destbnx","22":"tag-destcsa","23":"tag-destdnp","24":"tag-deste","25":"tag-destfun","26":"tag-destg","27":"tag-destgns","28":"tag-destlby","29":"tag-destozabsm","30":"tag-destozatpm","31":"tag-destpco","32":"tag-destpge","33":"tag-destpsc","34":"tag-destrast","35":"tag-destrbn","36":"tag-destreulb","37":"tag-destrnp","38":"tag-destrws","39":"tag-destrwsa","40":"tag-destsf","41":"tag-destu","42":"tag-destucdptest","43":"tag-eire","44":"tag-emea","45":"tag-emrg","46":"tag-europ","47":"tag-fin","48":"tag-gen","49":"tag-ie","50":"tag-ireland","51":"tag-law","52":"tag-mtpix","53":"tag-namer","54":"tag-nasia","55":"tag-phon","56":"tag-phon1","57":"tag-pol","58":"tag-privt","59":"tag-pxp","60":"tag-regs","61":"tag-ru","62":"tag-rulessouth-africa","63":"tag-safr","64":"tag-satcom","65":"tag-satser","66":"tag-science","67":"tag-space","68":"tag-tcom","69":"tag-tech","70":"tag-teeq","71":"tag-tel","72":"tag-tmt","73":"tag-us","74":"tag-wles","75":"tag-wles1","76":"tag-za"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}