ICASA Funding- relevant articles...

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Been googling for info on ICASA today, got side-tracked loads of times, but my main focus today is ICASA funding, so I will add more relevant urls to this thread when I find them, please do the same.

Article: ITWeb (brainstorm December 2004): Back to a convergent future.

 

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Been googling for info on ICASA today, got side-tracked loads of times, but my main focus today is ICASA funding, so I will add more relevant urls to this thread when I find them, please do the same.

Article: ITWeb (brainstorm December 2004): Back to a convergent future.

Very interesting read ic. This statement in particular reinforces the view I have held for some time

Mike Lawrie agrees: “The [Telecommunications] Act appears to have been written to protect network operators rather than to serve the needs of a developing country.”

The point that I have been trying to put across is that the law making process is in of itself flawed. However I will also say that this is often exacerbated by our own apathy as ic has previously suggested

 

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My intention behind the googling was to determine how much money goes to ICASA- indirectly from taxes that we already pay.

The other apect: obtain ICASA's end-of-tax-year financial statements (audited) to evaluate whether the money they have been receiving is wisely spent, as well as whether there has been enough money for what they are expected to do, and on the DoC side, whether Ivy has been trickling the money when things don't go her way.

The fact is that we do need an ICASA that truly is an authority, and truly is independent, IMO, we do not have that with the current ICASA council/dispensation...

Unfortunately I did not manage to achieve much of this objective yesterday, so I have had to drop it due to time constraints.

I still think that we pay enough in taxes as it is, and ICASA needs to consider something other than R30000 per VANS Licence application, which is just outrageous.

I would love to get my hands on their financial statements- find out what's really going on over there...

 

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2000-11-21/ICASA TO DEFEND THIRD CELL PHONE COURT CASE

...The decision to withdraw was made after the regulator had been refused a supplementary budget by the government, including a request to fund the court case. The government has now made a commitment to ensure that ICASA has the necessary resources to fulfil its regulatory functions and to defend itself against alleged irregularities in the process of awarding the third cell licence...

Does not say anything much on topic, but is an interesting titbit- I was not in SA at the time.

 

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2004-06-21/Address by the Hon. Minister of Communications, Dr Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, to the National Assembly, on the occasion of the Budget Vote of the Department of Communications Cape Town

...We will work together to increase ICASA's funding and strengthen its capacity through the Convergence Bill...

Again, not the concrete that I wanted, but some interesting stuff in there...

 

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2002-05-07/BUDGET SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, DR IVY MATSEPE-CASABURRI, National Assembly

...I therefore invite you to help us in this endeavour by voting to approve the budget of R823 451 000,00 for this financial year.

Finally, I would like to conclude by thanking the dynamic management team and entire staff, of the Ministry and Department of Communications...

A serious amount of money (well according to me anyway), I don't know if she got, if she did where is our SNO? Wish I knew if ICASA got any of that & how much...

 

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2004-04-01/Hope springs eternal (Financial Mail)
I just hope this was not an April Fool's Joke...

...Unlike its predecessors, Icasa has financial discipline. It has achieved unqualified audit reports on time and has secured financial assistance for capacity building from the World Bank and donor agencies such as the UK's department for international development.

Icasa has managed to increase its baseline budget allocation from R108m in the 2000/2001 financial year to R148m in 2004/2005, an increase of 32%, well in excess of the 6% standard annual adjustments. It has also improved licence fee collections from R643m in 2000/2001 to R920m in 2002/2003. Though this money still accrues to government coffers, the national treasury has indicated it is in favour of Icasa being funded from licence, regulatory and spectrum fees rather than parliamentary appropriations.

Financial Mail

Exactly what I was trying to find out.

Also, a very interesting read from other aspects.

 

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~2002-02-18/Budget 2002 Vote 26

I found that very interesting (not ever having looked at a DoC budget document before), it has projected figures for 2004/2005. Having said that, I don't have time to look at all of it in any great detail.

Added: ~2003-11-12/Vote 27

In the 2002 Adjusted Estimates, government provided funding to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to settle its VAT liability with the South African Revenue Service (SARS). This was in response to a SARS ruling that all transfers received by Icasa are subject to VAT at the standard rate. Despite this ruling, the budget allocation to Icasa for 2003/04 did not include the portion for VAT on its transfers. Additional funds totalling R7,204 million have been provided to settle Icasa’s VAT liability. A further R2,5 million has been provided to redesign the Second National Operator (SNO) licensing process in response to the fact that the initial two SNO licensing processes failed to yield a suitable licensee to compete with Telkom in the Public Switch Telecommunications Services market.

 

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Google search string:
+icasa +site:gov.za +budget
if anyone is interested in finding other stuff that is also listed...

 

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The act of ICASA: http://www.internet.org.za/icasa-act.html
(credit for that url, goes to a clever dude that was in my Science classes @ NHS)