{"id":548961,"date":"2006-05-29T07:36:28","date_gmt":"2006-05-29T07:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/548961-draft-changes-to-icasa-bill-approved.html"},"modified":"2006-05-29T07:36:28","modified_gmt":"2006-05-29T07:36:28","slug":"draft-changes-to-icasa-bill-approved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/548961-draft-changes-to-icasa-bill-approved.html","title":{"rendered":"Draft changes to Icasa bill approved"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\">The amendments were approved by the communications portfolio committee this week, and would now be tabled in Parliament for consideration. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>A previously amended Icasa Bill was sent back to Parliament by President Thabo Mbeki, who declined to sign it into law, for the redrafting of suspected unconstitutional provisions. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>The latest version of the Bill requires the National Assembly&#8217;s approval for the Communications Minister&#8217;s appointment of the body&#8217;s nine-member council. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>No such approval, or even consultation, was required in the older version. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>The new Bill allows for public participation in the nomination process, transparency and openness, and the publication of a shortlist of candidates for appointment. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>Past versions allowed the minister to appoint an &quot;independent and impartial panel&quot; of five to make recommendations on appointments. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>The panel would have invited the public to nominate candidates and then submit a list of suitable candidates to the minister. The minister could ask the panel to review its recommendations. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>On the latest draft, the National Assembly had to submit a list of suitable candidates to the minister. It may invite technical experts to assist in the selection. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>The Minister must tell the legislature whom he or she proposed to appoint from the list. If the National Assembly was not satisfied, it could request the minister to review. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>Only after the National Assembly &#8216;s approval may the minister give notice of council appointments in the Government Gazette. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>The new draft also compels the minister to consult the National Assembly in establishing a performance management system for council members. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>The evaluation must be conducted by a panel constituted by the minister in consultation with the legislature. The panel must submit a report on the evaluation to the National Assembly. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>There was previously no provision for Parliament&#8217;s involvement in the performance management system. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>The Freedom of Expression Institute last month welcomed Mbeki&#8217;s refusal to sign the previous version of the Bill into law, saying it would have violated Icasa&#8217;s independence. <br \/>\u00a0 <br \/>Icasa is responsible for the regulation of broadcasting and telecommunications services in South Africa. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><i><font size=\"2\">INet-Bridge<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<p><em \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Parliamentary committee has approved draft legislative changes that boost the legislature&#8217;s role, and lessens that of the executive, in the appointment of the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}