South Africa (SA) 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
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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 requirement for licensees.<\/p>\n
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SA’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
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In his policy direction published in a government gazette this Friday, Communications Minister Solly Malatsi said so-called “equity equivalent” investment programmes in the sector should count toward empowerment goals.<\/p>\n
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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
<\/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
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“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
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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
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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
<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, SA rejected a claim by Elon Musk that his Starlink satellite company could not operate in the country because he is not Black.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14180,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78],"class_list":["post-21015","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"SA to amend rules on local Black ownership requirements which could pave the way for satellite-internet companies, including Elon Musk's Starlink, to operate in the country","published_date":"2025-12-12 20:11:40","news_description":"SA to amend rules on local Black ownership requirements which could pave the way for satellite-internet companies, including Elon Musk's Starlink, to operate in the country","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24841,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21015\/revisions\/24841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}