Outgoing Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) councillor Joseph Lebooa - one of the four recently prematurely "dismissed" regulator officials - has laid bare the inefficiencies he says he observed during his four-year tenure at the government entity.
In a 39-page exit report, submitted last week to Parliament's portfolio committees on telecoms and postal services as well as communications, Lebooa said his time at ICASA was "for some reason" spent primarily on operations, monitoring, enforcement and corruption issues - as opposed to "quality time" on strategic issues like policy and regulation.
The former, says Lebooa, is typically the functional area of the CEO, "however, this function was wanting in ICASA". Lebooa served as an ICASA councillor from October 2010, until the end of September.
WBS fees
One of the issues Lebooa highlights is that of Wireless Business Solutions' (WBS') unpaid licence fees - the subject of a legal fight between the company and ICASA that eventually saw the regulator write off R75 million after a settlement was reached between itself and the broadband company.
In October, ITWeb reported ICASA CEO Pakamile Pongwana submitted the regulator's decision to accept a payment plan from WBS - parent company of iBurst and Broadlink - instead of opposing the company's application for leave to appeal a High Court judgment against it, made six months prior. ITWeb has Pongwana's submission in its possession.
Pongwana indicated at the time ICASA would have ended up walking away from the whole skirmish without having recovered a cent from WBS, should it follow the latter route. Accepting the proposal - which did not include three years of arrears (despite WBS continuing to use the six disputed frequencies) - allowed ICASA to recover R76.5 million of the R151.4 million its engineering division calculated WBS owed it.
The CEO said there would be little merit in seizing the six disputed licences in WBS' possession. "The only advantage for ICASA would be that the spectrum becomes available again for other potential applicants. The ripple effect would be that the business of WBS would be impacted and so would its end-users."
Lebooa says ICASA illicitly reinstated the operator on its "illegal licences" without following due process prescribed and "intelligently found a way to make WBS not pay the R113 million it owed".
He says he "strongly believes" ICASA's decision was in contempt of court. "The judge did not even propose payment of any sorts of fees but ruled that WBS was operating illegally and did not have a licence to continue its operations."
ICASA spokesman Paseka Maleka says it did not permit WBS to continue operating on the expired or lapsed licences. "On the contrary, ICASA took the necessary steps to collect outstanding licence fees. However, the court interdicted ICASA from taking any further steps until judgment in the matter was delivered. WBS has since paid its licence fees."
Premature departure?
Lebooa also describes the termination of his contract at ICASA as premature.
Minister of communications Faith Muthambi maintains Lebooa - along with William Currie, William Stucke and Miki Ndhlovu - was duly dismissed according to the ICASA Act, which allows councillors four-year terms.
A proviso in the ICASA Act (Amendment 8(b) of the 2014 Amendment Act) states "councillors remain in office after expiry of their term of office until the commencement of the term of office of their successors, but the extended term of office may not exceed 45 days".
Muthambi says, however, the 45-day extended term is not part of the four-year term that a councillor has to serve. "It is primarily an option that a minister can exercise motivated by a myriad of factors including critical assignments to be completed by a councillor prior to leaving office."
In a response to ITWeb in October, Muthambi said she did not see "any reason to exercise this option". She said the departure of the four councillors would in no way affect the smooth functioning and decision-making, adding the council quorum was based on the majority of the councillors in office at the time ? rather than the overall number.
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