All political parties have agreed the issue of SA's high interconnection rates will be examined by Parliament's communications committee in September.
Yesterday, leader of the Independent Democrats Patricia de Lille proposed the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications, the legislative's oversight body for the ICT sector, should investigate the issue as it is hampering the use of mobile phones, especially for the poor.
“As the members are aware, I have been researching this topic for some time and I suggest that the committee receives a full briefing,” she told the committee yesterday afternoon.
In July, De Lille laid a complaint with the Competition Commission, alleging the high interconnection rates between the mobile operators was the reason for the high cost of cellphone calls in the country. De Lille also said she was considering proposing a Private Members' Bill (a draft law proposed by an opposition party) to regulate interconnection charges.
“As the members are aware, SA has the highest mobile phone call costs of all its peer countries,” she added.
The other opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance and the Congress of the People, supported her proposal.
The African National Congress gave its tentative support to De Lille's proposal, as one of its members, Nsiki Magazi, said: “While we do agree that this is an important issue, we as the ANC would like some time to investigate it ourselves before reporting back to the committee.”
The committee agreed it could start looking at the interconnection issue on 15 September, when the Department of Communications is due to report digital migration progress.
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