Lesotho signed a 10 year Starlink licensing deal back in April 2025 and South Africa nearly a year later is still not budging on their BEE requirements. Any foreign company investing in South Africa needs to relinquish a minimum of 30% ownership which will no doubt be grabbed by someone in the government. One of the only 1000 families reported to be the biggest benefactors of BEE.
Having lived in Africa for the majority of my life I would take a stab and guess things are far simpler than what they seem. We are not dealing with geniuses here and normally guesswork is far closer to the truth than you can imagine.
Many of the government officials and so called elite have shares in telecommunications like MTN with Ramaphosa's investment company Shanduka reported to have over 20% in that company.
We can see from the screenshot above how the price of data has tumbled once Starlink has been introduced and data is a big money earner for the top 3 cell companies in SA being MTN, Cell C and Vodacom. If they are going to lose revenue due to a new competitor providing a cheaper service which will no doubt drive down data prices then they are either part of it or will block it. This is quite simple basic logic and once they realized they could not grab a cheap 30% share holding which they are accustomed to doing then no deal was ever going to be granted.
Surely having all your communities connected and online is more valuable for the economic growth that will no doubt take place. Unemployment is so high the numbers have already overtaken those that are working in two major provinces and will not be long before the entire country is facing those statistics. This should be what is best for the country and not what is best for their pockets especially with data prices being as high as they are.
Others suggest that keeping Starlink out also helps their Chines friends with the Qianfan constellation which is not as big as Starlink, but is still a competitor. Reports suggest that Brazil, Malaysia and South Africa will be the first countries to welcome the Chinese version. There must be some free shares on the table for keeping their seat available so I would say the reason is one of the two or a combination of both.
When Rapaphosa met Elon Musk in New York on the 20th May 2025 which the reports stated that SA was offering Musk a Starlink deal. This may not have been a full blown 30% BEE deal, but I can assure you Ramaphosa was going to be a partner. This was the entire agenda of that meeting and nothing else as Ramaphosa is very easy to read and cannot hide his excitement or disappointment. At the time Ramaphosa thought he would land himself the deal of the century, but Musk was rightly not interested.
How come Lesotho a landlocked country within SA's borders has Starlink and there was no demand of ownership. I am sure many companies would love a President of a country on their Board of Directors, but Musk does not need them and they need Musk. This is hard for them to comprehend because they often do not get snubbed.