Government is mooting a change in the procedure of the appointment of Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) councillors using an independent committee and doing away with the role of Parliament in the process.
The change would be a key part of the long-awaited ICASA Amendment Bill, which is the legislation that governs the regulator. This Bill is expected to be cleared by the state`s legal advisors by the end of the week, but it will be too late for the current session of Parliament and will most likely be debated by the legislature in October.
Deputy minister of communications Roy Padayachie says the change in the appointment of the councillors is to take out the party political horse-trading that is part of the present system.
He says an independent committee appointed by minister of communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri would include industry representatives and be less influenced by party politics.
"We aim to remove the loyalty that a councillor may owe to a particular party as we have in the present system. Currently, there are often party trade-offs where one party agrees to appoint a particular councillor as long as its next candidate is appointed in the next round," says Padayachie.
Opposition parties are expected to oppose the appointment changes on constitutional grounds. However, Padayachie says ICASA does not enjoy the same protection under the constitution as other bodies such as the Independent Electoral Commission or the SA Reserve Bank.
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications (PPCC) currently interviews and appoints all ICASA councillors. It also votes in the regulator`s budget and the statutory body answers directly to it rather than the Department of Communications. ICASA has been heavily criticised, locally and overseas, for not having the capacity to fulfil its role in regulating the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors.
The late arrival of the ICASA Amendment Bill has been a sticky issue with the PPCC as it has hampered its deliberations on the Convergence Bill that has sections that refer directly to it.
A source familiar with the ICASA Amendment Bill told ITWeb that all references to ICASA`s funding had been removed.
"The whole point of it was to detail where ICASA would get its money from so that it can build up the capacity it needs to regulate the industry. However, the National Treasury has not shown the confidence needed to allow ICASA to raise its own funds (through licence fees) and to be allocated a budget directly from central government," he says.
Share