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Cape Town - The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) is taking legal advice on whether it may disclose to parliament confidential financial figures on how cellphone companies calculate their costs.
Icasa acting chairperson Robert Nkuna told the Portfolio Committee for Communications that the most recent figures on costs that Icasa has at its disposal were for June 2009.
There is a major debate under way as to whether this information should be disclosed, even if only on a confidential basis to parliament, since parliament has a supervisory role over Icasa.
Nkuna and his fellow Icasa board members had been taken to task by the committee because of their long delay in effectively regulating the cellphone industry and because it was apparently so complicated to determine a fair interconnect tariff.
Cellphone companies have, from about 1999 to 2001, increased the tariffs by more than 500% - from 20c to more than R1.20.
After sustained pressure, MTN and Vodacom last week announced that they would cut interconnect tariffs by 19%.
In 2007 Icasa began the process of drawing up regulations for the industry, but this was done in terms of the Telecommunications Act, although the Electronic Communications Act was already in existence.
A new process was then initiated to rewrite the previous regulations in terms of the Electronic Communications Act.
Until last Friday Icasa had attempted to persuade the industry to lower interconnect tariffs voluntarily.
It will now concentrate its efforts on drawing up regulations in terms of Chapter 10 of the Electronic Communications Act, which provides for appropriate intervention in the event of market domination.
By March next year Icasa hopes to have the regulations complete.
ANC member of Parliament Johnny de Lange asked why it had to take so long and why it was so difficult to determine what it cost cellphone companies to initiate and end calls between networks.
Patricia de Lille, leader of the Independent Democrats, said that Icasa needed a new legal team.
Nkuna and his team were generally unable to answer the committee's questions either suitably or in simple language, and committee members complained that they still lacked clarity on what Icasa was going to do about the excessively high interconnect tariffs.
- Sake24.com
For more business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.