In a move that could soon be outlawed, a senior Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) official has joined a private company shortly after its licence was amended, allowing it to become a major player in the broadband industry.
Former Icasa councillor Mbulelo Ncetezo, whose term at Icasa ended in June last year, joined Wireless Business Solutions (WBS) in August as head of legal and regulatory affairs. WBS’s terms of licence were amended by Icasa on April 30 2004.
The upgraded licence turns WBS, previously a low bandwidth supplier used by the national Lottery, into a fully-fledged broadband competitor to Telkom and Sentech.
Its iBurst (wireless mobile broadband) product is proving popular, with 8 000 users signing up since April.
Ncetezo said he had no part in the decision to upgrade WBS’s licence and had not been present at any meetings where the issue was discussed.
But the “revolving-door” policy — where government officials move into private business sectors that they have been active in — is likely to become a thing of the past if draft resolutions agreed at the African National Congress’s national general council (NGC) last week are put in place.
The introduction of a “cooling-off period” was on the agenda at the NGC to prevent situations such as where former communications director general Andile Ngcaba invested in Didata and Telkom after leaving his position last year.
The ANC organisational report questioned whether a dedicated government agency should automatically review a public servant’s decision to open a business or accept a job in the same line of work.
“Leaving public service to conduct private business after having placed reliable partners in leadership positions still in the public service is a malpractice, which is hard to prove but clearly prevalent,” the paper read.
WBS was licensed in 1997 by the postmaster general to provide national mobile data services for South Africa’s Lotto system on a narrow frequency of 400MHz.
In April last year, Icasa took a decision to amend WBS’s licence to allow it access to the 1 800MHz spectrum required to launch its wireless broadband network.
Ncetezo was one of the top seven officials at Icasa when the decision was taken to amend the licence, but says he was not part of the committee that was responsible for the decision. This has been confirmed by an Icasa spokesperson.
Ncetezo says that because he was not involved with the committee or its decision there is no conflict of interest. “I don’t think there is anything to be gained from my move to WBS except for my experience in telecoms,” he said.
WBS chief operating officer Thami Mtshali said he was aware that Ncetezo had an interest in joining WBS after the licence had been amended.
“I had to be very cautious in hiring him after we had our licence amended, but I was involved in the licence amendment process and he was not part of any of the sub-committees,” said Mtshali.
WBS chief technical officer Sasan Parvin said there were currently 34 base stations servicing 8 000 users in Pretoria, Centurion, Midrand, Johannesburg, Soweto, Durban and Cape Town.
“We are enhancing our existing coverage this year and will look to expand into Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and East London probably next year. Our ultimate goal is to expand to cover the whole of South Africa,” said Parvin.
There had been some teething problems, said Parvin, but these were to be expected when such cutting-edge technology was involved. The majority of the problems have been rectified and Parvin believes everything is on track for iBurst to achieve its aim of attracting 100 000 users in the next few years.