The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) has admitted it still needs to up its efforts in terms of compliance and enforcement. This comes amid protracted disputes with licensees, capacity constraints, and outstanding fees currently standing at over R480 million.
While the authority says it "continues to carry out its mandate as spelled out in the law", it also said last week capacity issues were holding it back from fully enforcing telecommunications regulations.
Asked how the authority intends to rectify this, ICASA spokesperson Paseka Maleka says: "[ICASA] continues to engage with licensees to ensure compliance."
On Friday, Maleka acknowledged the authority "needs to intensify its compliance and enforcement activities to ensure that compliance is achieved by all the licensees; and all cases of non-compliance are referred to the Complaints and Compliance Committee for adjudication".
Unsympathetic
However, this may be easier said than done, as the regulator's capacity shortage is compounded with unpaid licence fees - an issue that stems as far back as 10 years ago, and which has eroded National Treasury's sympathy for ICASA.
Democratic Alliance shadow communications minister, Marian Shinn, who has been involved in meetings between ICASA and the Auditor-General, as well as the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications (PPCC), says treasury is reluctant to fund ICASA for upgrades to what she says are historically inadequate resources and systems.
"Treasury won't give ICASA any more money to run its operations, until [the regulator] has a system in place for collecting fees. At the end of last year, ICASA showed some commitment, but they need to implement and be firm now. The political will of ICASA to get its systems right will go a long way to Treasury being sympathetic."
According to Maleka, most of the outstanding fees are for the use of the radio frequency spectrum, and are "mostly disputed by some of the licensees". The fees, he says, have been unsettled for anything from two to 10 years.
According to ICASA's presentation to the PPCC, just over two weeks ago, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is ICASA's largest outstanding creditor. The SANDF owes in excess of R189 million for the use of radio frequency spectrum.
The South African Police Service was previously ICASA's second biggest owing creditor, but Maleka says the state entity recently settled the amount of R20.9 million.
Maleka has confirmed three companies are involved in spectrum-related disputes. These are the Basson Group, Vodacom and Wireless Business Solutions.
Five companies are involved in other electronic communication-related disputes: Neotel, Orbiom, Cell C, Internet Solutions and MTN.
Shinn says the "cesspool of inadequate and incompetent funding" is both the authority's and the companies' fault. "On the one hand, some companies say they will exploit the matter and refuse to pay fees until ICASA gets its house in order, but ICASA has to be firm to say: 'We are going to get this right and there will be some pain, but the fees have got to be paid'."
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