Telkom’s general executive for regulatory affairs has resigned. Staff were informed on Monday that Andrew Barendse was leaving the telecommunications group. It is understood reliably that he is joining Vodacom’s regulatory affairs division.

Barendse’s resignation comes just weeks after TechCentral revealed that newly appointed Telkom group CEO Sipho Maseko had made it one of his first orders of business to meet with and apologise to the full council of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) for the operator’s past aggressive approach to the industry regulator.

One Icasa councillor, who asked not to be named, told TechCentral at the time that the shift in approach by Telkom was a “breath of fresh air” and that this had “made a world of difference”. regulatory affairs

“It’s a different mind-set. They’re now open to ideas,” the councillor said.

In a significant break from the past, Telkom also recently agreed to a series of pro-competitive measures with the Competition Commission as part of a consent agreement to remedy past abuses. Among other things, the operator agreed to a R200m fine, to “functional” (operational) separation of its wholesale and retail businesses, and to a range of retail and wholesale price cuts. It would subject itself to ongoing oversight by the competition authorities in an effort to stop future abuses.

Barendse, who was present at the meeting at which Maseko apologised to Icasa, has had an adversarial relationship with the regulatory authority in the past.

At one particularly heated session in October 2011, discussions between Telkom and Icasa ground to a temporary halt when the operator, led by Barendse, adopted an aggressive stance regarding local-loop unbundling and attacked the regulator’s handling of public hearings into the process. The hearings were halted by Icasa councillor William Stucke so that the authority could consult with Telkom in private.

At the hearings, Barendse, who has a PhD in regulatory economics from the Delft University of Technology and an MBA from the University of Cape Town, had warned that any attempt to introduce local-loop unbundling could have serious implications for Telkom and the country.

Stucke and Barendse have had a particularly fractious relationship, also clashing over the alleged leaking of a supposedly confidential written interim order handed down by Icasa’s complaints and compliance committee to a third party.

Barendse has been Telkom’s group executive for regulatory affairs for the past six years, joining the operator in November 2007. He is also an adjunct associate professor at Wits University, where, according to his LinkedIn profile, he teaches and supervises on telecoms regulation at PhD and masters levels.