TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Fixing SA’s power crisis is not complex: it simply takes the will to do better

      12 August 2022

      Consortium makes unsolicited bid for state’s 40% stake in Telkom

      12 August 2022

      Actually, solar users should pay more to access the grid – here’s why

      12 August 2022

      Telkom says MTN talks remain on track

      12 August 2022

      Analysis | Rain muddies the waters with approach to Telkom

      11 August 2022
    • World

      Tencent woes mount, even after $560-billion selloff

      12 August 2022

      Huawei just booked its first sales rise since US blacklisting

      12 August 2022

      Apple remains upbeat about iPhone sales even as Android world suffers

      12 August 2022

      Ether at two-month high as upgrade to blockchain passes major test

      12 August 2022

      Gaming industry’s fortunes fade as pandemic ends

      11 August 2022
    • In-depth

      African unicorn Flutterwave battles fires on multiple fronts

      11 August 2022

      The length of Earth’s days has been increasing – and no one knows why

      7 August 2022

      As Facebook fades, the Mad Men of advertising stage a comeback

      2 August 2022

      Crypto breaks the rules. That’s the point

      27 July 2022

      E-mail scams are getting chillingly personal

      17 July 2022
    • Podcasts

      Qush on infosec: why prevention is always better than cure

      11 August 2022

      e4’s Adri Führi on encouraging more women into tech careers

      10 August 2022

      How South Africa can woo more women into tech

      4 August 2022

      Book and check-in via WhatsApp? FlySafair is on it

      28 July 2022

      Interview: Why Dell’s next-gen PowerEdge servers change the game

      28 July 2022
    • Opinion

      No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

      11 July 2022

      Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

      8 July 2022

      South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

      4 July 2022

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»News»Icasa owed millions by licensees

    Icasa owed millions by licensees

    News By Editor22 February 2013
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    cell-tower-640

    The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has been unable to recoup millions of rand from noncompliant licensees. This indicates the regulator is incapable of properly managing the sector. In January, the Mail & Guardian reported that Icasa councillor Joseph Lebooa alleged that he had been hijacked and threatened with his life to drop a case against telecommunications company Wireless Business Solutions (WBS). He further claimed WBS owed millions in unpaid licence fees and penalties for rolling out radio links illegally.

    WBS, iBurst’s sister company, denied its links were illegal and distanced itself from the attack on Lebooa, but Icasa confirmed that some links had been rolled out illegally and that WBS’s payments were in arrears. Lebooa has since told the M&G that WBS was in no way singled out by him or the regulator, but was, in fact, just one of hundreds of noncompliant licencees.

    “There are in excess of 700 service licencees who are noncompliant in terms of their licence fees and their Usaf [universal service and access fund] contributions.”

    The Usaf is intended to fund projects to achieve universal service and access to information and communications technology by all South African ­citizens. Every holder of a licence granted, or deemed to have been granted in terms of the Electronic Communications Act, is mandated to make prescribed ­contributions to the fund.

    Furthermore, Lebooa said there were thousands of outstanding spectrum debtors, both disputed and undisputed. These cases had not yet been properly audited and the debt needed to be determined. Collection has also been hampered by disputes surrounding the introduction of new licence-fee calculations. Telecoms lawyer Dominic Cull said there were two ways of calculating the fees.

    The new pricing model, introduced last year, takes into account different uses of spectrum and the need to ensure that licensees occupy the appropriate spectrum for these uses.

    Previously, there was a fixed price of R770 per megahertz per link a year. The new formula would reduce these fees dramatically, Cull said. Cull agreed that there were plenty of companies guilty of nonpayment of licence fees, such as the South African National Defence Force and the South African Police Service.

    “It is hard to get a handle on what has happened with WBS, but Icasa is under immense pressure to collect fees,” he said. Following a number of qualified audits, it had become clear that “Icasa couldn’t enforce its way out of a wet paper bag”.

    There had been no reports of nonpayment in Icasa’s annual financial reports, Lebooa said. “It was not reported to the department of communication or the treasury, so it always looked good.”

    Dominic Cull
    Dominic Cull

    The qualified audits have, however, been a game-changer, Cull said, and forced the revision of service licence-fee regulation. Following its third qualified audit report, Icasa was forced into a management shake-up in November last year, in which councillors took over duties usually overseen by CEO Themba Dlamini.

    Lebooa became responsible for regional oversight and enforcement. WBS, he said, just happened to be the first case he had looked at.

    Lebooa said there were more than 1 200 unpaid links “that I know of. There are possibly more.” He said some of the links had been operating since 2004. Cull said the WBS case seemed like “low-hanging fruit in terms of enforcement”.

    Lebooa said it was probably the first to come across his desk because other staff members had long been pushing for enforcement and WBS’s case was mired in politics.

    Cull said that, previously, if companies wanted a dedicated line, they would need to go through Telkom, but now dedicated frequency links such as those WBS had rolled out were a faster, more convenient option. He said it would not necessarily be the bigger players like Vodacom or MTN — which would use these kinds of links only temporarily — that would suffer, but rather smaller companies that would wish to ­compete with WBS.

    “It’s a very competitive market,” he said. “My guess is that WBS owes a good couple of million.”

    The M&G previously reported that, according to Lebooa, WBS could potentially owe tens of millions in licence fees for several years of nonpayment and R100m if found to be operating the illegal links. “Nothing is happening … as it stands, they are illegal,” Lebooa said.

    When the M&G first published Lebooa’s allegations against WBS, the company responded by saying that all licensees were invoiced at the beginning of every year for spectrum licence fees and WBS, like any other operator, would receive licence-fee invoices this quarter for the 2013/14 fees.

    Lebooa said that Icasa had, in effect, refused to offer any protection to him or his subordinates. Nor had it offered him any legal protection, as WBS had laid a complaint of crimen injuria against the councillor two weeks ago.

    Icasa’s third qualified audit has placed it firmly under the spotlight. For the year 2011/2012, the auditor general reported that 56% of Icasa’s total planned targets were not achieved.

    He further found that because of lack of controls over the invoicing and collection of licence-fee revenue, the entity’s records did not permit the application of alternative audit procedures and consequently, he was unable to determine whether any adjustments to the national revenue fund receivable and resulting payable figures were necessary.

    The auditor general found that Icasa did not implement proper record keeping in a timely manner to ensure that complete, relevant and accurate information was accessible and available to support financial and performance reporting. Nor did it prepare regular, accurate and complete financial and performance reports that were supported by reliable information.

    The audit report also said management did not adequately review and monitor compliance with applicable laws and regulations. In a presentation to the parliamentary portfolio committee on communication, Icasa said it was attempting to attain a clean audit by 2014.

    The regulator was not able to respond to questions by the time of going to print and WBS did not wish to comment.  — (c) 2013 Mail & Guardian

    • Visit the Mail & Guardian Online, the smart news source
    • Image: Rutlo/Flickr
    Dominic Cull iBurst Icasa Jospeph Lebooa MTN Themba Dlamini Vodacom WBS Wireless Business Solutions
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleBackspace: the power is in whose hands?
    Next Article Safaricom to ditch feature phones

    Related Posts

    Fixing SA’s power crisis is not complex: it simply takes the will to do better

    12 August 2022

    Consortium makes unsolicited bid for state’s 40% stake in Telkom

    12 August 2022

    Actually, solar users should pay more to access the grid – here’s why

    12 August 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Get your brand in front of TechCentral’s amazing audience

    12 August 2022

    Pricing Beyond CMYK: printers answer the FAQs

    11 August 2022

    How secure is your cloud?

    10 August 2022
    Opinion

    No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

    11 July 2022

    Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

    8 July 2022

    South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

    4 July 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.