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Is ICASA's legal department holding it to ransom?
by Hans van de Groenendaal, EngineerIT features editor
On 31 March 2011, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) published the new Radio Frequency Spectrum Regulations in the Government Gazette. The ink had hardly dried on the document when ICASA received a flurry of complaints about mistakes and inaccuracies.
Now a year later the corrections still have to be published in the Government Gazette. Apparently this is being held up by the legal department. It is a reason frequently given by many ICASA officials as to why projects are being delayed. "It is with legal". One gets the feeling that the legal department runs ICASA and not the council, the chairperson or the CEO. One of ICASA's employees said recently in total frustration that once you send something to "legal" it is never seen again!
Take the Radio Frequency Spectrum Regulations. These have been years in coming. Outside consultants were appointed to assist with the document and finally the first draft was published for comment in the Government Gazette on 29 September 2010. Public hearings were held on 1 and 2 December 2010 at which many companies and institutions presented their views and suggested changes supported by extensive documentation. At the time ICASA had planned to release a second draft but this decision was later reversed and it went ahead and published the final regulations.
One can't but wonder - where did things go wrong? Several clauses which were not disputed at the public hearings were arbitrarily changed, making ICASA seem incompetent. Even the experts in ICASA who spent years on the draft were utterly dismayed. They had not been consulted. The changes were made by the legal department. Is it an exaggeration to say that this department is holding the regulatory body - and for that matter, the industry - to ransom?
One of the more absurd examples of this is the errors in the table of frequency allocations for amateur radio. The table was correct in the draft regulations and met the requirements as laid down in the national table of frequency allocations, which is aligned with the ITU table of frequency allocations. No one in ICASA seems to know where the errors were made.
Over the past year many of the corrections were agreed upon and were ready for publication in the Government Gazette. But no, the legal department decreed that all the corrections have to be published at the same time in one Government Gazette.
How long this will take no one knows. One of the regulations concerning fees is being disputed by a mobile operator and is being contested in court. Again, it is anyone's guess how long this may take.
There are many issues in industry such as frequency allocations for international mobile telecommunications services that just seem to drag on forever. One can't help but wonder if the legal department is also holding this up.
Talking to some of the experts at ICASA (yes there are experts) one can sense their utter frustration at not being able to get on with what they know is the right way of dealing with issues.
It is high time for both the council and chairperson of ICASA to take action and set strict, non-negotiable timelines for the legal department to adhere to.
The industry and country cannot be held to ransom any longer.
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Economic Regulators Conference
Call for abstracts - two days to closure
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) in association with Trade and Industry Policy Strategies (TIPS) announces the first South African Economic Regulators Conference.
DATE: 21 & 22 August 2012
TIME: 08h30 to 17h00
VENUE: Emperors Palace, Jones Road, Kempton Park, Gauteng
COST: Open event, no cost to attend
WEBSITE: Click here to visit the call for abstracts webpage
NERSA and TIPS invite interested academics, staff from regulatory bodies and licensees to submit abstracts of papers to be presented at the conference.
BACKGROUND
Like many other developing countries, the SA government economic policy is spearheaded by an infrastructure thrust, to be implemented mainly - but not only - by state owned enterprises. The mixed regulatory dispensation and the various economic regulators' decisions play a critical role in shaping the trajectory of SA's infrastructure sectors, including energy, transport, water and telecommunications.
At the same time, the limited financing capabilities of state owned enterprises and the state on the one hand and a stop-start approach to the introduction of competition and privatisation in the infrastructure sector on the other, make for a challenging environment for economic regulators. In some instances this may lead to a tension between the ideal of a "developmental state" and the objective of increasing the competitiveness of the economy.
A general concern is the fact that administered prices have been a major contributor to inflation and the rising cost of living. Prominent recent examples include an effective doubling of the electricity price over three years and a public outcry over toll road fees. The developmental implications of administered prices and tariffs are especially significant in light of the fact that these costs impact the poor disproportionately as a portion of their overall income leading to sometimes complex and inconsistent subsidies and cross subsidies.
It is recognised that the efficacy of economic regulators depends in part on their perceived independence, funding, governance and how they interface with policy, planning and the public as a whole.
PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE
- To establish and advance an intellectual discourse in economic regulation in South Africa
- To share knowledge and best practice among economic regulators in South Africa with the possible participation of invited international economic regulators
- To generate cross-fertilization of ideas among economic regulators, intellectuals, academics andothers working in the area of economic regulation
- To attract interest among students, academics, practitioners in economic regulators and the like to the area of economic regulation
- To provide an environment for dialogue between practitioners in economic regulation, researchers, policy-makers and other stakeholders around economic regulation issues.
CONFERENCE THEME
The conference seeks to address the following key question:
"How can South Africa's economic regulators contribute to cost-effective delivery of essential infrastructure in the face of key financial, social and environmental imperatives?"
The sub-themes in this discussion include:
- The policy-planning-regulation interface
- Sources and modes of funding for future infrastructure,
- State owned enterprises, public-private partnerships, privately owned entities
- Tariffs and pricing: reasonable returns and their economic, social and environmental sustainability
- Regulating for competition and security of supply in the context of funding challenges
- Institutions, governance and coordination (including reporting, funding and appeal)
- Industry restructuring or unbundling of vertically integrated industries
- Entry barriers for new operators
ABSTRACT AND PAPER SUBMISSION DETAILS
Abstracts should be submitted to ipeleng@tips.org.za by by 31 March 2012. Authors of selected abstracts will be contacted by 13 April 2012 with a request to submit a full paper, and will be given guidelines on format and style. The deadline for the submission of full papers is 29 June 2012.
Abstracts should include the title and author(s) of the proposed paper and a brief summary of not more than one page highlighting the key research question and broadly describing the research methodology and expected results. The topic of the proposed paper should be in line with the conference theme and sub-themes given above.
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