Parliment’s porfolio committee on communications resolved on Wednesday to remove Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) chairman Rubben Mohlologa after he was found guilty of fraud and money laundering.
Mohlaloga, who also served as a councillor of the communications regulator, is now facing the axe, News24 reported on Tuesday evening.
Mohlaloga was convicted in the specialised commercial crimes court in January after he defrauded the Land Bank of about R6m in 2008 and acted with at least three other accomplices to transfer the money from the bank to an attorney’s trust account, News24 reported. He is expected to be sentenced on 3 April.
Mohlaloga will reportedly be given five days to provide reasons why he shouldn’t be fired.
Democratic Alliance MP Phumzile Van Damme said last month, after it emerged that Mohlaloga has been convicted, that he was automatically disqualified from serving on the Icasa council.
“The three transferred funds from the Agri-BEE fund, money intended for poor farmers, into a trust account and bought a farm for R2m as well as an X5 BMW and a BMW 118i for Mohlaloga, who was an ANC MP and the chairperson of the portfolio committee on agriculture at the time,” Van Damme said.
“The fact that he has been found guilty of fraud means that he no longer qualifies to serve on the Icasa council.”
TechCentral reported in December that Mohlaloga was set to be appointed as Icasa chairman by former communications minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane.
Mabuse Nkuna, the director-general in the department of telecommunications & postal services posted on Facebook at the time that he had met with “the newly appointed Icasa chair Rubben Mohlaloga” and said he looked forward “to working with him and the rest of the Icasa team”.
Mohlaloga, who previously served as an Icasa councillor, left the regulator in August after his term expired. He first joined the Icasa council in July 2013 and became acting chairman in June 2016.
Van Damme said last month that the Icasa Act prohibits anyone who has been convicted of “theft, fraud, forgery or uttering a forged document, perjury, an offence in terms of the Corruption Act or any other offence involving dishonesty” from serving on regulator’s decision-making council. — (c) 2018 NewsCentral Media
