Telkom tariff case postponed to October

By Phillip de Wet for Telkom
Johannesburg, 29 May 2002

The landmark case in which the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) is challenging the rates Telkom currently charges on its services will be heard over four days in October.

The Pretoria High Court yesterday scheduled argument in the case for 8 to 11 October in what was nominally the first hearing in the matter after two postponements this year.

ICASA contends that Telkom increased its tariffs in January in contravention to regulations which limit the increases the company is allowed to impose. Telkom says it was not bound by any regulation because it used a window period, in which no regulations were in force, to file the increases.

Telkom is also asking for a review of the new tariff regulations created by ICASA last year, and under which the authority is asking the company to rework its tariffs.

The matters will be combined and heard together in October.

Should Telkom lose the case, it has promised to refund all its customers the difference between its current rates and the lower fees that could then be imposed by ICASA. Yet the company says it is on firm legal ground and it has consistently remained confident about the case. Telkom objected to previous delays it blamed on ICASA, saying it wanted the matter closed as soon as possible.

The government, the controlling shareholder in Telkom, has refused to intervene in the matter, but communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri says she has asked the two parties to settle the case.

"I continue to encourage ICASA and Telkom to amicably resolve the issue of Telkom`s tariffs," she said last week.

However, Telkom says it becomes increasingly difficult to come to a settlement as the case progresses.

"Once it is before the court, the measure of control which we have over it decreases a lot," says Victor Moche, the company`s group executive for regulatory and government affairs. "Our options become a lot more limited."