OWN CORRESPONDENT, ELLIS MNYANDU and SAPA, Johannesburg | Wednesday 9.30am.
South African Telecoms Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and favoured cellular licence bidder Cell C have slammed a Hong Kong-backed group in court for trying to delay the awarding of the country’s third mobile phone licence.
In papers presented to Pretoria’s High Court yesterday, the minister’s lawyers said losing bidder NextCom’s legal challenge to the decision merely sought to throw the award process into turmoil. Saudi-backed consortium Cell C was even more scathing, accusing rivals Nextcom of using the media to wage a smear campaign.
NextCom is asking the court to to stop Minister Matsepe-Casaburri from making a final decision on who should receive South Africa’s third cellular licence, but the Minister’s lawyers say the delay could cost the state and other licence contenders dearly. The process licence was due to have been finalised in July last year.
Chris Loxton, appearing for Cell C, argued before Acting Judge Nico Coetzee that Nextcom was abusing the process of the court by trying to “slip inadmissible and highly prejudicial hearsay evidence through the back door”, “planting” highly selective stories in the media, and then trying to get the newspaper reports admitted as evidence in court to support its application.
Matsepe-Casaburri’s lawyers said NextCom’s demand for a review had no basis as the process had not yet been completed.
The licence has an estimated value of R1.4 bn and will give the winner the right to compete in a market set to generate revenues of about R8bn this year.
A decision on NextCom’s application is not expected until later this week, according to a telecoms ministry official.