Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) councillor Mamodupi Mohlala has tendered her resignation and asked to be released from her duties two months early.
She had been heading the telecommunications licence conversion process for the regulator.
Mohlala's resignation letter to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications, ICASA's oversight body, asks for the three-month notice period required in terms of the law governing ICASA to be waived to allow her to leave by 1 June.
Although Mohlala did not provide reasons for her departure and did not return calls from ITWeb, it is believed she will join the Pension Fund Adjudicator - a body that falls under the Financial Services Board.
Mohlala has been an ICASA councillor for the past five years and late last year was reappointed for a second three-year term. Her prime function has been to head up the telecommunications licence conversion process in order to meet the requirements of the Electronic Communications (EC) Act, which has replaced the Telecommunications Act.
Moonlighting
In terms of the EC Act, the conversion process must be completed by January 2009. In March, Mohlala told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications that the process should be completed by September 2008.
However, industry remains sceptical that ICASA, with its reported organisational problems, would be able to meet the deadline, because all it has done so far is issue a framework document on the conversion process.
"Industry and the big telecommunications companies have plenty of irons in the fire, so to speak, and they need certainty about the process soon. The news of her resignation could not come at a worse time," an industry insider says.
Mohlala also stirred the ire of several Parliamentarians last year when news broke that she had been moonlighting by continuing her legal practice while holding her councillor position. She said this extra work did not fall within the sphere of ICASA, but promised not to do it again.
No comment could be obtained from ICASA about Mohlala's resignation.
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