The Department of Communications has gazetted amendments to the Electronic Communications (EC) Act. These amendments are aimed at smoothing out the licence process for Infraco, although the department does not explicitly say so.
The EC Act Amendment Bill was published in the Government Gazette dated 17 September and allows the public 30 working days in which to submit comment. Thereafter, it will be tabled before Parliament, and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications will deliberate on the amendments.
Changes to the EC Act were originally suggested during the public hearings into the Infraco Bill. This law will govern government's new enterprise that has been tasked with rolling out an "affordable" broadband network. It will initially do this using the Easitel and Transtel assets that were originally earmarked for second national operator Neotel.
Those hearings were conducted before Parliament's Public Enterprises Committee. It, and the communications committee, agreed the original "deeming" provision for Infraco, to allow it to operate as if it had a licence, should be scrapped. It was decided that the EC Act would be changed to allow for strategic government intervention in the sector.
According to a communications department statement, the objective is to amend the Act to empower communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri to issue a policy direction. The aim is also to provide an opportunity for government to make strategic interventions on infrastructure investments whenever it deems necessary, says the department.
"In amending the Act, government will be able to address pertinent issues in the ICT sector, such as reducing the cost to communicate by providing infrastructure at wholesale rate to other operators; link Nepad broadband with Africa/Latin America and Europe; and provide the much needed bandwidth for strategic projects and consumers in general," the statement says.
The department also says the Bill will provide a forward-looking legislative framework, which facilitates government's intervention in the ICT sector in line with a developmental state.
Dene Smuts, communications spokesperson for the Democratic Alliance (DA), says: "We are pleased the Department of Public Enterprises' attempt to deem Infraco a licence was defeated in the relevant portfolio committee and now comes to us in communications. It is important that the licence should sit logically within ICASA's licensing regime, with licence conditions consonant with the rest of the economic terrain."
However, Smuts says the DA can hardly agree to provisions that fundamentally change the new EC Act licensing regime.
"The excuses offered are 'to ensure strategic infrastructure investment' (but any number of private sector companies want to land cables) and, more ominously, 'to provide for a framework for the licensing of a public entity'," she says.
African National Congress MPs refused to comment publicly, but did express misgivings privately about the EC Act Amendment Bill.
"To change a law so soon after it was passed is not a good thing," one said.
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