The Electronic Communications Bill, the new name for the contentious and extensively deliberated Convergence Bill, has been redrafted to mixed reaction from media industry stakeholders. General agreement that the parliamentary portfolio committee showed good faith in taking account of private media’s concerns has been tempered by unease over questions surrounding procedure and enforcement of competition law.
‘[Parliament] took comment from the media industry on issues that adversely affected them, it was a positive step,” says Dan Rosengarten, e.tv’s legal representative at the latest round of parliamentary discussions, which were concluded last week. ’95 percent of concerns about [governmental] interference are gone.”
The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) and Online Publishers Association (OPA) – industry bodies that played a key role in presenting concerns to parliament in August – acknowledge that progress may have been made, but neither will give an official comment until the bill is finalised.
‘One of the provisions we were most concerned about is that all individual licences would need to be approved by the Minister of Communications,” says Jane Duncan, FXI’s executive director. While Duncan’s understanding is that the section has since been removed, she remains ‘reticent to comment” as she was ‘not part of the latest deliberations.”
The OPA’s major concern, as detailed in their own submission in August, was to ensure that ‘the bill does not require the licensing and regulation of online publishing and information services.” The submission continued that such a step ‘could limit the constitutional right to freedom of expression.” OPA representative JP Farinha told eMedia yesterday: ‘The feeling on [the September deliberations] was that parliament was listening, but we can only really comment once we’ve seen the final proposal.”
Icasa chair Paris Mashile informs eMedia that the Electronic Communications Bill cannot be finalised until legislative amendments regarding the regulator’s powers are concluded. ‘The [Electronic Communications Bill] is not complete in the sense that certain chapters must be informed by the Icasa Amendment Bill.”
Adding that the Electronic Communications Bill grants the regulator added responsibilities, Mashile says: ‘We are hoping to get more resources. A forensic analysis of the new bill will determine what needs to be done, by whom, by when and for how much. We will need human resources, physical resources and financial resources.”
A leading private media stakeholder, who requests anonymity, applauds the opportunity for comment granted to the industry but expresses concerns on two aspects of the redrafted bill. ‘The competition chapter is worrying. It imports competition law definitions and imposes a system whereby Icasa can unilaterally amend licences to fit in with those provisions. There is no appeals process.”
The second concerning aspect, according to the source, is the lack of procedural recourse. ‘We had a situation with the old IBA Act where procedures were detailed. This new bill is very thin on procedure and as a licensee and business operator you want certainty. Icasa has a lot of power. There is a feeling that all procedural issues will be dealt with in the Icasa Amendment Bill, but the industry hasn’t seen it yet.”
A further concern was outlined by Dene Smuts, Democratic Alliance spokeswoman on communications, in the Business Day yesterday. Referring to the Icasa Amendment Bill, Smuts wrote: ‘It is an open secret that it will place the selection of [Icasa] councillors in the hands of the executive instead of parliament.” v
Mashile would not comment on the statement.
FXI supports gay lobby in dispute with SABC
Following the eMedia of September 16, ‘Gay lobby to confront Mpofu”, the following are extracts from the FXI’s (Freedom of Expression Institute) statement of support for the LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex) coaltion.
‘The FXI supports the call by a coalition of six organisations connected to the LGBTI community for the SABC to explain publicly its position on the discontinuation of Tuesday Nite Live on Radio 2000. The corporation’s conduct on the matter goes against its commitment to its own mandate of providing public broadcasting for all, and confirms the FXI’s long held suspicions that it sees itself as a commercial broadcaster mainly, and that public broadcasting is a subsidiary element of its mandate that can be sacrificed on the altar of profits. It is unforgivable that, at a time that the SABC has boasted its biggest profit in over seventy years of its existence, it can crowd out a programme of undeniable public interest on the basis of lack of commercial viability.
”The intention of the programme was to open up a space for the gay and lesbian community to debate issues that affect them, and for everyone to relate to issues of sexual orientation, so it is disappointing to see that the SABC has given the unfortunate impression that it is not serious about giving a platform to the LGBTI community, and in fact is willing to practice economic censorship in relation to voices that are already marginalised in mainstream discourse. Rather than creating a situation where the programme was closed, the SABC should have been proactive about its concerns regarding the financial viability of the programme, and organised another platform if this was absolutely necessary. The SABC has clearly mismanaged the situation, and therefore the meeting with the CEO Dali Mpofu shouold be brought forward from November, so that the so-called public broadcaster can make good on these management blunders.”
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