Opposition political parties have expressed diametrically opposed views to communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda's announcement last week that an agreement had been reached to cut mobile interconnection rates.
In Parliament, Nyanda said the three cellular network operators had agreed to cut the peak rate from 125c per minute to 89c, starting from February for Vodacom and Cell C, and March for MTN. The off-peak rate of 77c is unaltered.
Nyanda also said that, during December, the network operators would introduce new and innovative products that would help lower the retail rate.
“Further, I am glad to report to the House that mobile operators have committed to introduce new and affordable retail products based on their reduced rates from 1 December 2009. I have been assured that these developments will further introduce more competition in the retail market,” he said.
“That on its own, honourable members, is the big early Christmas and Easter present that we can give to the nation.”
Killian criticised the minister for creating expectations that mobile call rates will be reduced to 89c per minute. “The minister should know that there is no correlation between interconnect rates and call rates. Furthermore, mobile operators say they did not agree to lower call rates, other than their normal Christmas packages. This could mean that the minister misled Parliament.”
Killian said the announcement by the minister has absolutely no statutory impact - only ICASA can approve interconnect agreements and regulate call rates.
The minister's involvement in this process smacks of political opportunism, she added. “After years of neglect of the communication sector by government, the minister wants to claim victory of processes initiated by the PC [Portfolio Committee] on Communication. The independent regulator, ICASA, should monitor interconnect rates - if they fail to do their job, they should be removed from office.
“His political intervention sets a dangerous precedent - it effectively means we have regulation by political intervention.”
Killian warned that the minister's announcement would create further uncertainty about ICASA's statutory processes. “What if ICASA now opts out of their statutory processes to determine cost-based interconnect rates to ensure smaller operators have more profitable interconnect agreements?”
De Lille's present
However, Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille, who started the debate on interconnection before Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Communications, welcomed Nyanda's announcement. She described it as “Parliament's Christmas gift to the nation”.
De Lille said the operators finally succumbed to pressure, and agreed to introduce new and affordable retail products based on these reduced rates from 1 December 2009.
“The ID welcomes these reductions as a start to reducing the interconnection rate to acceptable levels that curb some of the obscene profits made by cellphone operators until now.”
De Lille said she was right to lay a complaint with the Competition Commission to investigate the high interconnection rates. She added that the voluntary reduction by the operators confirms that interconnection rates were too high.
“The minister has agreed with me that this is a big Christmas gift from Parliament to the nation. I wish to thank the minister and the director-general of communications for their hard work and support for my campaign.”
De Lille said the announcement was an example of Parliament working for the people in that its success has translated into savings of billions of rands and will have an impact on the life of almost every single South African.
“The ID has been vindicated and we would like to state for the record that we disagree with those that say the minister interfered with the work of ICASA. There was no interference by the minister to take over the role of ICASA. The fact of the matter is that the minister does indeed have the legal mandate to do what he did in terms of the Electronics Communications Act,” De Lille said.
The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, has not released a statement.
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