Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko has hit out at communications regulator Icasa over its planned radio frequency spectrum auction, saying the regulatory authority “tends to make rules on the run”, despite the enormous implications for the company and the industry more broadly.
Speaking at the JSE-listed telecommunications operator’s annual general meeting of shareholders in Sandton on Wednesday, Maseko said the company has “fundamental problems” with the Icasa process and how Icasa reached the requirements set out in the invitation to apply (ITA) “for a whole variety of reasons”.
“We note the fact that there is a 30% threshold around black economic empowerment [in order to apply],” he said. “We don’t know what is the logic that Icasa followed with regard to this specific requirement. We will work with them to understand what informs that requirement.”
Citing Icasa’s controversial decision to give the nod to Vodacom’s now-abandoned acquisition of Neotel — a decision that was challenged in the courts by Telkom and other operators — as well as its regulations on call termination rates, which were also challenged in court, Maseko accused the regulator of making decisions without fully thinking them through.
He said Telkom is still mulling legal action against Icasa to challenge the ITA in court.
“The last communication we issued was that we are exploring legal options, and we are still in that movie,” he said at a media conference following the conclusion of Wednesday’s AGM. “We have fundamental issues with the process that Icasa has followed.”
He said that the ITA follows a pattern of decisions by Icasa that are “disconcerting” and “worrisome”.
“It’s how the regulator chooses an approach to manage these issues in a way that is not consistent with how a regulator needs to behave. Even with this ITA, even if you put aside the substantive issues, we have a number of process issues. We will take the right legal action.”
He said the “demeanour” of Icasa during consultation on key issues has become “narrow and shallow” and that it’s not clear whether input provided to it has been heard before it “takes a step in a particular direction”.
“I am hoping they are not susceptible to influence and direction…”
He said the industry itself may be partly to blame in that it has regularly hired people away from both Icasa and the department of telecommunications & postal services, which sets policy for the sector.
“You end up with critical pillars of policy and regulation being weak,” he said. Yet it is in Telkom’s interests, and in the interests of the rest of the industry, to have a strong and credible regulator.
That top people get hired away from Icasa is one of the contributors to “random and erratic behaviour”, he said. “Be that as it may, I need to look after the interests of Telkom. When a regulator behaves in a random, erratic way, we need to represent the company for which we work in the right way.” — © 2016 NewsCentral Media