SEACOM and ICT SMME Chamber Sign Landmark MOU to Boost ICT Sector Growth

The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies, Ms Khusela Sangoni Diko, has welcomed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between SEACOM South Africa (Pty) Ltd and ICT SMME Chamber, calling it a groundbreaking milestone.

Seacom South Africa is a diversified ICT provider of scale, with presence in eight countries around the world that prides itself on its extensive undersea cable network and fibre grid, allowing its corporate clients to tap into exceptional digital connectivity and services.

The ICT SMME Chamber is regarded as the champion of ICT SMMEs in South Africa, helping its members to thrive through advocacy, networking, access to market and enterprise development.

Ms Diko said an integral part of delivering on Parliament’s mandate of law-making, executive oversight and public participation is ensuring that the government and its entities deliver on their commitments to the people to achieve meaningful transformation and economic participation of the country’s economy, including the ICT sector, to put people to work and build industries and sectors to achieve an inclusive economy.

It is against this backdrop that the committee had invited the ICT SMME Chamber and other non-governmental role players to its recent capacity-building workshop, held between 20 and 22 August 2024 to brief the committee on the status of the SMMEs in the ICT sector, as well as the challenges and the opportunities that exist for collaboration between government, the private sector and broader society to deliver on our collective aspirations of a digitally connected future.

We are particularly pleased that this momentous step forward comes at the back of our successful engagement with various sectors of society in which the committee sought to bring together different role players to coalesce around a common vision. Our strategic orientation as a committee is to corral the relevant role players to work together to harness the greater economic opportunities provided by the digital economy.

Ms Khusela Sangoni Diko, Chairperson, Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies, Parliament of the Republic of South Africa

She further said that the MOU means that the organised SMMEs within the ICT space will now benefit from SEACOM’s digital offerings, including cloud and connectivity on-premises networking, as well as network and cybersecurity solutions.

Ms Diko has called on other big businesses within the sector to emulate the good example set by SEACOM South Africa and ICT SMME Chamber.