Mashile's Mess

Sneeky

Sneeky

Honorary Master
Joined
May 5, 2004
Messages
12,176
Reaction score
2,733
Location
Durban
http://www.mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=3183

Icasa
MASHILE'S MESS

By Duncan McLeod

Poor leadership and legislative uncertainty have led to a crisis at the regulatory body

South Africa's broadcasting and telecommunications regulator is in crisis. Serious questions are being asked about the management ability of Paris Mashile, who chairs the powerful decision-making council of the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa). And senior staff are leaving faster than they can be replaced.
Click to expand...


Journalism at its best, Government interference and politics at its worst.
 
Last edited:
This is the kind of mess that drives SA down the drain. Nor wonder Telscum is running loose like it is. If ICASA can't run it's affairs, how on this beautiful green earth can we expect good results from them?
 
DoC/Telkom and ICASA are some kind of unholy trinity that are doing their absolute best to strangle SA's economy.
 
Regulation is anyway just a band-aid that doesn't address the real source of the festering problems, scale down ICASA and open up the friggin market already, let competition do the work.
 
How can one not get negative when the regulator of the industry is falling apart and is suppose to be the one to enforce affordable telecoms pricing? You know what I think at this stage, that when Telkom files for prices increases ICASA doesn't bother objecting because it doesn't have the gonads to enforce any legislation, and just let's the price increases slip through. Really sad state of affairs. Eish, what can we do?!
 
Turtle said:
Regulation is anyway just a band-aid that doesn't address the real source of the festering problems, scale down ICASA and open up the friggin market already, let competition do the work.
Click to expand...

I agree Turtle. But for a temporary "relief" ICASA needs to enforce lower pricing until such a stage that Govt/DoC decide one day to FULLY open the market and not in drips and drabs (SNO, Cell C) like they're doing now which allows for operators to collaborate on pricing and collectively charge these high prices.

Competition is the way to go (and it's been proven in 1st world markets), but ONLY when it's OPENED COMPLETELY. (Probably find the same story with DoC's partial LLU policy).
 
Last edited:
this correspondent will be attending the PPCC hearings next tuesday and will provide a full and uncompromising report

:)
 
Hmmm... and last year everything was just fine in ICASA hey?
This smacks of 3rd world corruption and infighting. So who appointed Paris?
I wonder how much more of this kind of thing is going on in big business? Remember the Telkom scandal last year when a few executives were suspended?
 
I know how we can solve all our problems in one fell swoop. we get rid of paris and put RPM in his place.
 
looks like the gravy train is derailing? choo choo splash!
 
Last edited:
Conspiracies within conspiracies

All that's happening is the inevitable decline resulting from lack of leadership starting from the DoC and going down the ladder to ICASA.

It's easy to speculate that next week's PPCC meeting will reveal nothing surprising because all the people that could've and wanted to make a positive difference have left and only the gravy-train riding, coasting staff that are happy with the status-quo are left. Afterall, how unbiased are they going to be? It's not like they're going to sworn under oath to confess the deep, dark secrets as to why the Regulator keeps struggling at failing at it's job, are they? :rolleyes:

Most likely, Paris or those that left will be given the blame and made examples of with the message going out to the public : "Look! We're cleaning up our act and you can all go home, comfortable in the knowledge that the issues and problems of the past are now behind us" but not actually doing anything until they're absolutely forced to.

Smoke and mirrors, people. smoke and mirrors.
 
Last edited:
LifelongGamer said:
All that's happening is the inevitable decline resulting from lack of leadership starting from the DoC and going down the ladder to ICASA.

It's easy to speculate that next week's PPCC meeting will reveal nothing surprising because all the people that could've and wanted to make a positive difference have left and only the gravy-train riding, coasting staff that are happy with the status-quo are left. Afterall, how unbiased are they going to be? It's not like they're going to sworn under oath to confess the deep, dark secrets as to why the Regulator keeps struggling at failing at it's job, are they? :rolleyes:

Most likely, Paris or those that left will be given the blame and made examples of with the message going out to the public : "Look! We're cleaning up our act and you can all go home, comfortable in the knowledge that the issues and problems of the past are now behind us" but not actually doing anything until they're absolutely forced to.

Smoke and mirrors, people. smoke and mirrors.
Click to expand...
all valid...but i am hopeful in respect of the hearings due to the fact that the portfolio committee is very clued-up and has already stated explicitly that atv this stage it is all about the regulator. They are under no illusions that the current state of affairs is anything but an absolute fsckup.

and there remain some very competent and dedicated folks at ICASA....just less and less as the days pass
 
How on earth did I not pay close attention to this article a week ago I do not know.

I just said in another thread that this is definitely an outstanding, unmatched piece of journalism on the sector.

You cannot read this article and not feel that cold steel feeling of dread. I am going to do a belated Antitrust opinion on this now.
 
One former senior staffer, who asks not to be named, says he sees little hope for Icasa. "I can't see that the regulator will recover without significant intervention, given the number of vacancies," he says. "Consider that virtually all institutional memory has been lost and that there remain few, if any, senior managers in the legal, broadcasting and telecom divisions.
Click to expand...
That cant all that bad. Sure if they were competent to begin with it would be a travesty but a collective memory of doing nothing needs to be eliminated. Time to start afresh IMO. They cant do any worse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X