DA asks why names of signatories in ICT pact with China were obscured

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DA asks why names of signatories in ICT pact with China were obscured

10:07 CAT | 11 Apr 2016

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has questioned why the copy of SA’s ICT pact with China, which the party received through an application under the Public Access to Information Act (PAIA), had the names of the three signatories — one South African and two Chinese— blacked out.

Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services’ acting director-general Joe Mjwara said in a letter to DA spokeswoman on telecommunications and postal services Marian Shinn that for “security reasons” he could not release the identity of the “third party” who had signed the pact last June. If she wished to obtain the names of the signatories she would have to make another PAIA application.

Ms Shinn said Monday that she had submitted her fourth application under the Act following what she said was “the continued obfuscation by the department on the reasons for secrecy about the signatures of those who signed the pact.

“If the pact, which includes co-operation on cyber security, is as innocuous as Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services Dr Siyabonga Cwele maintains, there is no need for the signatures to be ‘blacked out” on the document by what seems like a felt marking pen, and there to be no typed names of the signatories,” Ms Shinn said.

She said the “tortuous process” required by the department to learn what could probably be communicated in a three-paragraph letter “only adds to suspicions as to the reasons for secrecy and the scope of this ICT pact.”

Source: Business Day Live