Parliament has sent six names to communications minister Solly Malatsi, who must now select four of the candidates to be appointed to the decision-making council of industry regulator Icasa.

This is after the national assembly adopted a report by the portfolio committee on communications & digital technologies recommending the shortlisted candidates.

The four council seats had become vacant after four councillors’ terms ended.

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Speaking in parliament on Thursday, portfolio committee chair Khusela Diko said all six candidates shortlisted are “highly qualified”.

Twenty candidates were shortlisted to fill the vacancies; 17 of them were interviewed. The six candidates’ names forwarded to the minister are:

Karabo Mohale: Mohale is the executive deputy chairman of the National Youth Development Agency and holds an MA in development studies from Sussex University;
Charley Lewis: Lewis previously served on the Icasa council from 2020 to October 2024. He is also a consultant and adjunct professor to the department of information systems at the University of the Western Cape;
Joshua Tshifhiwa Maumela: Maumela holds a PhD in artificial intelligence has been the senior machine learning engineer at Vodacom South Africa since 2022;
Andrew Dibi Matseke: Matseke is the former executive manager of telecoms at Transnet and former CEO of Broadband Infraco;
Melusi Mthethwa: Mthethwa has been the executive for the national broadband plan at Telkom for the last nine years; and
Cassandra Gabriel: Gabriel is executive director of the Institute of Stakeholder Relations and MD of Gabriel and Associates, a management consulting company.

Diko said challenges in the ICT sector that the councillors will have to wrestle with include:

An outdated policy and legislative environment;
The need to contend with the fast pace of technological change, from artificial intelligence to satellite for communications;
The advent of streaming services that have disrupted the broadcasting sector;
The regulation of postal services; and
The fast-expanding e-commerce landscape.

“Our new councillors, therefore, working together with the current council, must have … the awkward conversations on behalf of the people of South Africa. They must stand firm that the finite and precious commodity of government, which is our spectrum, must be deployed in the interest of our people as a whole,” said Diko.

Read: Council shake-up at Icasa

She said the new councillors must analyse the outcome of the last spectrum auction and “be unafraid” to propose different and innovative methods of attaining government’s objective of creating an inclusive society. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media