A free junket to London, courtesy of Telkom, for senior officials of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) and Department of Communications has drawn criticism.
Against the backdrop of attempts to break Telkom’s fixed-line monopoly, the freebie to attend a conference in April hosted by the International Institute of Communications, has attracted censure for the apparent conflict of interest.
Icasa chairperson Paris Mashile and councillor Mamodupi Mohlala attended the telecommunications, broadcasting and new media forum with the department’s director of telecommunications policy, Mashila Matlala, and deputy director of broadcasting policy Lesetja Kadiaka.
Disclosure of the trip follows the leaking of Icasa exit reports last week, which included claims that senior Icasa officials often undertook unnecessary foreign trips at Icasa’s expense.
”Travel to various parts of the world is done continually but no feedback is generated back to Icasa. In fact, I am sure the library has very few reports from the people who travel,” said an employee who worked in Mashile’s office.
The London forum brought regulators from around the world to discuss international developments. The Icasa officials also visited European telecoms operators to discuss unbundling the local loop.
Critics argue that with the department and the regulator closely involved in attempts to liberalise the telecoms market it was inappropriate for both sets of officials to accept gifts from the fixed-line monopoly.
The Inkatha Freedom Party spokesperson on communications, Suzanne Vos, said the all-expenses paid trip was clearly ”industry capture” and that the officials should have known that accepting the offer was inappropriate.
The Democratic Alliance’s spokesperson on communications, Dene Smuts, says officials should take enormous care to shy away from sponsorships that might lead to accusations of conflict of interest. She said Icasa was hopelessly under-funded, which prevented it from regularly attending conferences aimed at keeping abreast of international regulatory developments.
Said Vos: ”In principle the more we expose our councillors to understanding all the ramifications of unbundling the local loop is well and good, but I think that Icasa councillors should have been wise enough to know not to accept the offer.”
Icasa and the Department of Communications are set to spearhead regulation that will have a direct impact on Telkom’s business and revenue streams.
Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri announced the formation of independent committees, which will look at broadband take-up and unbundling the local loop, giving Telkom’s rivals access to the ”last mile” of its network infrastructure.
These committees will report to the minister and not to Icasa. Department of Communications Director General Lyndall Shope-Mafole says the committees have been set up to guide policy, but that Icasa will do the implementation. Shope-Mafole says the local loop committee is tasked with deciding on the policy as well as the time frames. The broadband committee will look at issues of access.
The department, Icasa and Telkom argue that there was nothing untoward in the all-expenses-paid trip.
Icasa spokesperson Jubie Matlou says unbundling the local loop is the ”sole prerogative of the minister of communications in conjunction with the Department of Communications”.
He says this ”is a policy imperative and not a competency of Icasa and as such conflict of interest could not be an issue as this was not a competency of the authority”.
Icasa said that all invitations were carefully considered and issues of perception of conflict of interest were addressed. ”The council of the authority discussed the agenda of the conference and authorised the trip on the basis of the programme of the conference and the regulatory spin-offs that would accrue from attending such a conference,” said Matlou.
The chairperson’s message attached to the Icasa code of conduct says, ”It is important that Icasa councillors and officials maintain a constant commitment to the highest standards of collective and individual independence, impartiality, dignity and effectiveness.”
The Department of Communications’s director of communications, Albi Modise, denies that its officials have a conflict of interest. ”The study tour was aimed at exposing officials to the developing trends internationally in the sector.”
Modise says the department authorised the two officials to attend the conference after receiving the invitation from Telkom, but intended to pay for all their expenses. ”Between the authorisation and undertaking the trip, Telkom paid for the officials and gave them tickets to travel to London. The department has since instructed its travel agency to refund Telkom for the costs,” said Modise.
Telkom’s head of communications, Lulu Letlape, said that because Telkom, Icasa and the department share the ”common objective of ensuring economic development and a competitive regulatory environment”, it invited the officials on the trip.
”Telkom believes that the trip was beneficial for South Africa’s telecommunications sector as a whole as the delegates [the department, Icasa and Telkom] were able to gain valuable knowledge from their peers across the world,” said Letlape.