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ICASA is clueless, says report

Paul Vecchiatto
By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent
Cape Town, 29 Aug 2006

The country`s communications regulator lacks understanding of corporate governance, as well as its government mandate, states an independent report, presented in Parliament yesterday.

The report, "Analysis of the staff exit report dated 2000 to date and organisational analysis", was compiled by management consultancy Monyetla Executive Services. The consultancy was contracted by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) in response to several parliamentary questions on leaks to the media, which indicated the regulator was suffering severe internal discord.

But, in reaction to the highly critical analysis of ICASA`s staff exit report, the politicians said this is not what they asked for.

Godfrey Oliphant (ANC), acting chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications, presented copies of the report during the first round of candidate interviews for the five vacant ICASA council seats. He first received the report on Friday last week - the date by which the committee had originally asked for it.

The report says the council needs to be more strategic as opposed to being involved in operational matters, that lines of reporting seem blurred, and there is a lack of delegation of power and responsibilities. Furthermore, there is no sharing of values and culture and the code of conduct has to be adhered to by all employees, it states.

According to the analysis, decision-making processes are done at certain levels only and while a strategic plan had been drawn up, it had not been "cascaded to all for adoption".

Other problems pinpointed in the analysis include human resources development, which is severely lacking, and that there is no information sharing as people work in silos and not teams.

It also noted there is no internal communications process, including a proper staff induction process.

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