Politicians wrestled with the problem of finding a replacement for newly-appointed Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) councillor Andrew Barendse on Friday. This followed the news that he had accepted a position with dominant telecoms utility Telkom.
Barendse was one of five nominees agreed to by Parliament and communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, in late September, to replace three councillors who had left the regulator and to increase the council to nine. He was considered a prize candidate because of his extensive experience in regulatory affairs, including a five-year stint in Holland where he completed a doctorate and held a position of associate professor.
The news was hotly debated among politicians during the presentation of the ICASA annual report to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications and it dominated the first half of the discussions.
Call to reopen hearings
The question on how to replace him was addressed along party political lines, with the incumbent African National Congress (ANC) members of Parliament wanting to approach the next person on the original list of eight candidates. However, opposition parties, including the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party, said the hearings should be opened again.
DA communications spokesman Dene Smuts said hearings had to be opened again to find the right person, as the law (the ICASA Amendment Act), said a person with an economics background had to be part of the council and the other candidates did not necessarily meet that criteria.
Kgotso Khumalo (ANC) countered by saying time was not on the committee's or ICASA's side, and that a fully constituted council was needed as soon as possible because of the workload the regulator faced.
Portfolio chairman Godfrey Oliphant (ANC) said the committee would have to seek guidance from the Department of Communications to find a solution.
Economic decision
Oliphant told ITWeb that Barendse had been in discussions with Telkom, unknown to ICASA and the committee, over the salary package and benefits, and he had eventually decided to go with Telkom.
"It was a purely economic decision, so who can blame him?" Oliphant said.
ICASA chairman Paris Mashile, during the rest of the presentation and question session, briefed the parliamentarians on plans to address governance and administrative issues that had bogged down the regulator.
Mashile talked about a "laundry list" of 31 items, including that of corporate governance, and a new personal structure that would better organise the regulator so it can do what the Electronic Communications Act requires of it.
"I plan to have a strategy session in December that will include all the new councillors," he said.
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