Telecoms15.04.2013

WBS calls for Icasa councillor removal

By Staff Writer

iBurst parent company, Wireless Business Solutions (WBS), has requested that the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) remove Councillor Joseph Lebooa from their case.

According to WBS, it is the second time that they requested the removal of the councillor on grounds that he is “clearly conflicted”.

The first time came after allegations were made by Lebooa in the Mail & Guardian newspaper 7 weeks ago that he “was hijacked, beaten and taken on a 3 hour hell ride by assailants sent by WBS”.

Lebooa said that the assailants threatened him with his life in a bid to force him to drop an investigation into the company.

WBS consequently strongly refuted these allegations and condemned them as utterly irresponsible and malicious. The company has since laid a complaint of crimen injuria against councillor Lebooa.

Statement by WBS

WBS issued the following statement regarding its grievances

We have repeatedly denied any link to this incident. That is definitely not how we operate as a company.

What concerns us greatly now though is that to continue to allow this person that harbours such acrimonious feelings towards the company and who has made such serious criminal allegations against WBS to be in charge of reaching a settlement with us, shows a serious discord of action.

The Regulator cannot be acting in good faith or be predisposed to a fair settlement between us through such a conflicted negotiator.

How does this individual that has claimed to have been beaten up by criminals sent by WBS be expected to act objectively when dealing with that same company? Whichever way you look at it, he is just too conflicted.

The company said the application for the search and seizure warrant sanctioned by the Councillor without endorsement by the rest of the council and despite the ongoing discussions between the parties, showed that he was acting in bad faith and waging a campaign to hurt WBS’ business.

Our main goal is to reach a fair settlement. We want to pay ICASA what is due to them, and have no wish to be used as a scapegoat either as a result of a personal vendetta that he may have, or of internal squabbles and faction fighting that may be occurring within the regulator.

We have also noted the repeated utterances by the Regulator that they would like to make an example of us, with extreme concern.

These serve to demonstrate that they are prioritising making us an example of their efforts to collect fees, rather than giving precedence to us reaching a settlement.

We also do not understand the rationale behind the decision for WBS to be the “example” when there are other companies who have higher amounts of outstanding spectrum fees to the Regulator than ourselves, and when we have been negotiating in good faith and have expressed willingness to pay.

We wonder if there really is a will on the part of the Regulator to reach a settlement with us, and urge that if indeed there is, they should proceed to appoint someone who can carry out the task promptly, expediently, and without prejudice.

Councillor Lebooa is clearly not that person, and allegations and utterances made by him over the past couple of weeks serve only to highlight that fact.

Lebooa’s behaviour to date had been extremely irresponsible and we question his motives in implicating WBS so frivolously in a matter that could only serve to discredit and tarnish the company’s image.

WBS has also since became privy to the contents of the statement made by the councillor to the police following his hijacking and upon examining them, have noticed that they were completely at odds with the contentions he made in various media reports about the matter.

When reading his statement and comparing it with his references to the incident in the media it is clear that a huge amount of embellishment and false accusation has made its way into his accounts of the incident between the time of its occurrence to date.

For example, at no point in the statement made under oath to the police does Mr Lebooa express that these men were sent by WBS. Instead he said,

Joseph Lebooa statement

(“….they searched me and took a cash of about R5000 from my wallet and my pockets. They told me that they did not want my vehicle because they were not cheap. They also told me that they know where I am staying. I then thought that they are from WBS who operated illegally…”)

It is clear from this statement that Mr Lebooa made his allegations about WBS based on a whim. Owing to the fact that these gentlemen told him that he was “stopping them from working,” he then develops this injurious notion that these must be the actions of WBS.

This same councillor is then allowed to negotiate a resolution of the dispute with the very same WBS. This is totally unacceptable. The Regulator ignored our initial plea for them to remove Lebooa from any dealings with WBS, and we therefore, repeat our calls for his removal.

We have requested that ICASA replace him with someone who does not hold such an obscured view of the company, so that we can reach a speedy resolution and put all of this behind us.