Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri extended the call for nominations to the .za domain name authority because previous calls were not publicised widely enough, says the selection panel.
The Department of Communications says the reopening of the process comes on the recommendation of the independent selection panel for the authority, which is to be a regulator of the .za domain suffix. The selection panel was appointed last year.
Panel chairman Sello Matsabu says the intention with the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act, in terms of which the authority is to be formed, is to try to make the Internet as pervasive and inclusive as possible, also reaching "non-Internet players". The call for nominations is deemed to have failed on this score, and the panel recommended that the process be reopened.
"It is not a matter of not having received enough nominations - we received 80 good ones - or of any specific category of South Africans not having come forward," Matsabu says.
Steering clear of any demographic or geographic details of nominees, he says that it is purely a procedural matter of not having publicised the call widely enough.
In one instance, an extension was not gazetted and in another the call for nominations did not get wide enough radio coverage. "If there is one medium that we can consider to be pervasive, it is radio," says Matsabu.
"We`re just making sure that the process cannot be called into question."
Making sure that the letter and spirit of the law is followed, he hopes that the setting up of the body will not be compromised in any procedural manner.
The panel has also recommended that previously submitted nominations be considered.
The statement from the communications department says: "It is hoped that the reopening will result in additional suitable candidates being put forward, and will allow for greater public participation in the nomination process. This will ensure that all the requirements stipulated in the Act are adhered to and that the process of appointing the domain name authority cannot be contested on administrative grounds."
Matsepe-Casaburri has signalled her confidence that the process of setting up the authority will be finalised within the 12-month period stipulated in the Act.
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