Icasa's actions suggest an agenda, says StarSat after raid — A satellite antenna outside StarSat’s head office in Midrand, Johannesburg

StarSat has accused the communications regulator of ulterior motives following a raid at the broadcaster’s premises.

StarSat has slammed Icasa’s Wednesday execution of a search-and-seizure warrant during which the communications regulator, accompanied by the police, raided StarSat’s premises in Midrand and disconnected infrastructure including servers, internet cables and computers.

According to StarSat, Icasa overreached by confiscating equipment also belonging to StarTimes Media, causing disruption to broadcasts across 23 African countries where it provides services, said StarSat.

Pule Mabe, head of public affairs and strategy at StarSat, said at a media briefing on Thursday afternoon that Icasa officials executing the raid refused to take guidance from StarSat staff members on the specific equipment to disconnect, opting instead to disconnect all equipment “indiscriminately”.

This is despite the fact that equipment belonging to StarTimes allegedly did not fall under the warrant’s purview, because while parent On Digital Media’s (ODM’s) licence has indeed expired (the reason for the raid), StarTimes’ licence is valid.

Mabe claimed Icasa “may have contravened” the Icasa Act in the way it conducted the enforcement action. It also allegedly approached the court ex parte, “meaning that in approaching the magistrate, we should have been present to also state our case”, Mabe said.

‘Aggressive’

He argued that as part of the process of confiscating StarSat’s equipment, Icasa had a duty to justify that each piece of equipment taken was “material to an investigation Icasa is undertaking”, but that no such justification was forthcoming.

“Based on the excitement and the taking of equipment that does not fall under the arena of ODM … we are not saying there is an agenda but Icasa’s actions suggest there is an agenda,” said Mabe.

Read: Icasa raids StarSat, pulls plug on infrastructure

Earlier in the week, in response to a question from TechCentral ahead of Wednesday’s raid, Mabe had said he did not believe there was a political motive for Icasa’s decision that StarSat should stop broadcasting in South Africa due to its licensing woes.

Mabe said there were many occasions StarSat tried to engage with Icasa, but the regulator was slow to respond to the company’s letters and meeting requests. He also admonished the “aggressive” behaviour of Icasa representatives at StarSat’s premises on Wednesday.

“We have avoided saying this because we respect individuals, but some of their behaviour sought to suggest that they seem to be positioning themselves for other things perhaps, in other terrains, that may be standing in the same competition with ourselves – moreso because we have seen movements from Icasa to another institution that provides the same services that we are providing here,” said Mabe cryptically.

According to Jan Harmse, marketing manager at StarSat, the equipment taken has disrupted services for call centre, internet, digital terrestrial television, direct-to-the-home satellite and streaming services across 23 African countries “who have done nothing wrong”. As a result, viewers in the affected territories may have access to some channels and not others, while the quality on some channels may be poorer than they are used to.

“Some of our best channels like Discovery Channel and National Geographic are not available at all because they are beamed to South Africa first before they are sent to the rest of Africa,” said Harmse.

Following Wednesday’s raid, StarSat’s legal counsel approached the high court in Pretoria seeking to interdict Icasa’s actions. TechCentral understands the application is yet to be filed because the signatures from StarTimes Media, as the other affected party in the matter, are required before it can be processed. StarSat has said it plans to approach the office of communications minister Solly Malatsi, too.