Politicians labelled ICASA a “lazy horse” and “dead duck” yesterday. They expressed their frustration - at the authority's inability to reduce telecommunications prices - to candidates vying for the vacant councillor position.
This took place during the interviews of seven candidates by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications. The committee originally selected nine candidates; however, two of them, including the person who occupied the position until the end of July, Mthobeli Zokwe, withdrew their nominations.
The remaining candidates were Josephine Mabotja, a senior specialist in Telkom's regulatory department; David Vannucci, an engineer; Dillo Lehlokoe, an ICT consultant; Zandile Mxaku, a managing partner in a consultancy; Edmund Baloyi, advisor to ICASA chairman Paris Mashile; William Stucke, treasurer for the Internet Service Providers' Association; and Khulile Boqwana, a senior manager for regulation at Telkom Media (now Super 5 Media).
The “lazy horse” comment came from Democratic Alliance MP Niekie van den Berg, during Baloyi's interview. It followed a raft of questions asked by all the party MPs as to why ICASA appeared to take so long to make a decision, or to get things done.
African National Congress (ANC) MP Nisiki Magazi said: “Why are the people there not seized with the importance of what they are doing?”
Magazi and Van den Berg also asked if ICASA had taken Baloyi's advice on various issues.
Baloyi tentatively agreed with the “lazy horse” comment, and pointed out that his advice was taken some times and at other times not. He said it was on his advice that ICASA had decided not to contest the Altech court case that effectively liberalised the market, but that advisors were not allowed into council meetings.
The politicians asked all the candidates about the high cost of interconnection fees, and what could be done about it and why it was taking ICASA so long to act on this issue.
Stucke pointed out during his interview that some members of the ICASA council appeared to lack the confidence to take on industry and were afraid of being hauled off to court.
Named and shamed
The better use of frequency allocation was among Stucke's proposed remedies for bringing down telecoms costs and widening access. Stucke named former councillor Zokwe as the person who “sat on the 5.87GHz report for two years and we still have no sight of it”.
Stucke said ICASA has a database of frequency spectrum allocation, but it refuses permission to allow anyone to see it.
“It should be published for everyone to see,” he said.
ANC MP Eric Kholwane said the database contained sensitive information that relates to the country's security. However, Stucke countered this by saying military-assigned frequencies were more or less the same throughout the world and so there was no secret about that.
“Also, senior defence force officers have told me they would like to have sight of that database to see what has been allocated,” he said.
Backdoor remedy
During Boqwana's interview, the last of the day, he said that at ICASA he had the task of consolidating the network operators' return in terms of the Cost Allocation and Cost Allocation Manual as part of the regulatory requirements.
“I can tell the committee this: that the unit cost of calls bears no resemblance to what the cost for interconnection is,” he said.
Boqwana proposed a shortcut method for bringing down the interconnection rate by communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda issuing a policy directive to ICASA to impose such a rate on the network operators.
“My reading of the Electronic Communications Act is that there is a back door and that is by the minister issuing a policy directive,” he said.
However, his answer served only to further goad Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille.
“It is totally unacceptable that ICASA should not have dealt with the first interconnection complaint in 2004. They have still not done it yet. Only now are they beginning to look at it and then we hear from candidates that it could take another five years,” she said.
Committee chairman Ismail Vadi summed up the politicians' frustrations with ICASA by saying: “I am telling you, ICASA is not just a lazy horse, it is a dead duck.”
The committee is due to select its preferred candidates for the vacant council position on Tuesday, 25 August.
Related story:
Parliament selects ICASA shortlist
Share