The Democratic Alliance’s sudden applause for the draft Equity Equivalent Investment Programmes (EEIPs) in broadband rollout is not a breakthrough. It is a betrayal — one more calculated pivot in their relentless campaign to hijack transformation while defending the economic status quo that keeps Black South Africans excluded.
Let’s not be fooled by the DA’s newly scripted lines on “inclusive growth” and “empowerment objectives.” This is the same party that took the Employment Equity Act to court, trashed B-BBEE as unconstitutional, and demonised transformation policies as “anti-business.” Now they want to repackage foreign tech dominance as empowerment? Nonsense.
Their support for Starlink is nothing short of digital colonialism — selling out the domestic ICT sector to an unregulated foreign giant under the banner of connectivity. The DA isn’t fighting for the rural poor; they’re fighting for white capital and foreign monopolies to operate above the law. Their endorsement of EEIPs here is not about justice — it’s about convenience. Equity equivalents were never intended as a backdoor for billionaires; they were designed for rare, exceptional cases — not to sidestep transformation obligations and eliminate Black business from the digital economy.
The brutal irony is that while the DA claims to be “bridging the digital divide,” they are actually widening the economic divide. By pushing for Starlink with minimal local partnerships, they’re advocating for the collapse of township-based ISPs, SMMEs, and tech entrepreneurs who have fought for a foothold in a sector historically dominated by a few. In the name of access, they are advancing annihilation — of jobs, opportunity, and ownership.
This is not empowerment. This is economic erasure.
Contrast this with the position of the ANC and its progressive alliances like the PPF, who have consistently defended transformation as a constitutional imperative and a moral duty. The new EEIP draft is not a concession to capital — it is a demand: that even the most powerful global entities must align with South Africa’s national priorities of redress, equity, and sustainable inclusion.
South Africa does not need satellite charity. It needs structural reform. We need broadband that builds, not broadband that bypasses. We need connectivity that empowers local enterprise, not connectivity that extracts value and leaves our people as permanent consumers in a global tech empire.
If the DA truly believed in empowerment, they would fight for local capacity building, for infrastructure ownership by Black businesses, and for regulatory clarity that protects domestic players from being bulldozed by billion-dollar foreign entrants. But that’s not their interest. Their interest is political: to use distorted narratives, tech buzzwords, and the illusion of reform to score points while reinforcing a system where transformation is optional — and inequality is permanent.
We must see this for what it is. The DA’s cheerleading is not about connectivity. It’s about control. It’s about cementing a future where Silicon Valley sits atop South Africa’s digital economy, while local entrepreneurs are locked out, written off, and forgotten.
We reject that future. We choose transformation with integrity — not betrayal dressed in broadband.
Stan Itshegetseng is an ANC member, Policy Strategist and Political Commentator.
