Performance Management System of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa: Briefing by Department of Communications; Committee Programme

Meeting report

Briefing by the Department of Communications on the Performance Management System of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA)
Ms Mameetse Mphahlele, Chief Director: Economic Policy Development, Department of Communications (DOC) presented the briefing to the Committee (see attached documents).

The Committee was first briefed on the ICASA Performance Management System (PMS) during 2010.  The concerns and suggestions of the Committee were addressed and the original PMS was subsequently revised.

The PMS was established in accordance with Section 6A (1) of the ICASA Act.  The key considerations in developing the PMS were the constitutional independence of ICASA; the mandate of ICASA; the collective decision-making principle applied by the ICASA Council and an outcomes-based approach.  The objectives of the PMS included compliance with the provisions of the ICASA Act; enabling the National Assembly to ensure that the ICASA Council performed in accordance with the set goals and targets in an effective, efficient and measurable manner and to provide a framework for monitoring performance to the planned strategic objectives.

The eight strategic objectives of ICASA were incorporated in a work plan, which was reviewed on an annual basis.  Key performance indicators and targets were set for each strategic priority.  The narrative document included the current strategic priorities, key performance indicators, key performance targets and timelines (see Table 1 on pages 5 to 12 of the attached document).  Individual performance agreements were established for the Chairperson and Councilors, to be signed by the Minister of Communications and the Councilor concerned by 1 April each year.

An Evaluation Panel would be established in accordance with Section 6A (4) of the ICASA Act.   The Panel would consist of the ICASA Council Chairperson and at least four other members with the necessary skills, knowledge, qualifications and experience.  The Minister of Communications would invite the public to submit nominations of persons to serve as members of the Panel.  The Department suggested that the Panel included a retired High Court Judge, a representative from the Office of the Auditor-General, academic experts, a representative from an organised consumer group and an independent expert in the international electronic communications, broadcasting or postal sectors.  Members of the Panel must not have any conflict of interest.

The briefing included a summary of the roles and responsibilities of the Minister of Communications, the National Assembly, the Chairperson of the ICASA Council, the ICASA Council and the evaluation Panel.  The presentation was concluded with an overview of the way forward.

Discussion
Ms F Muthambi (ANC) observed that many target dates for the current strategic priorities had been passed.  She felt that the DOC should have included an update on whether or not the targets had been achieved in the briefing.  The number of legal challenges brought against ICASA indicated that the processes followed by ICASA were a serious problem.  No mention was made in the briefing that this issue would be addressed.  ICASA was listed in Chapter 5 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) but this Act was not included in the list of guiding legislation on slide 3 of the presentation document.  She wanted to know how the priorities would be weighted and what process was followed to allocate certain priorities to Councilors.  She asked who would be held accountable for the failure of ICASA to fulfil its obligations, for example the failure to transfer revenue collected to the National Revenue Fund and instances where licenses were granted but not issued.

Ms J Killian (COPE) commended the Department on the standard of the documents submitted to the Committee.  The structure of ICASA was currently under discussion.  The term of office of a number of Councilors expired in June 2012 and a decision on the number of Councilors to serve on the ICASA Council had to be made as a matter of urgency.  The ICASA structure was recently evaluated by AFCON and a number of weaknesses in the existing structure had been identified.  She wondered if the ICASA Act should be reviewed.  The Committee was responsible for conducting oversight over ICASA and was blamed for the Authority’s inability to function effectively.  She was concerned that the PMS would not achieve the desired result and asked what the implications were if the Committee adopted the system before the other issues concerning ICASA were resolved.  She asked when the PMS would be implemented and when the changes to the ICASA structure would be made.

Ms M Shinn (DA) noted that the target dates of 19 strategic priorities were December 2011.  She asked what progress had been made in achieving the targets that had been set for the current financial year.  The DOC had suggested that members of the Evaluation Panel were drawn from academia and she wanted to know which fields of academic expertise potential members of the Panel would be operating in.  She asked what the reason was for suggesting the appointment of a foreign expert to the Panel.  The Minister of Communications was empowered to re-appoint Councilors when their term of office expired.  She suggested that legislative provision was made that no Councilor could serve more than two terms of office of three years each.

Mr C Kekana (ANC) said that Performance Management Systems were intended to assist individuals and the organisation to perform their functions and to allow for performance to be monitored.  He would like to see that provision was made for interim evaluations in addition to an annual evaluation of performance, which would allow for any necessary corrections to be made to ensure that the ultimate target was met.

Ms Stella Ndabeni, Deputy Minister of Communications said that the need for nine full-time Councilors had to be determined and that agreement had to be reached on the phasing out of extraneous Councilors.  The PMS would allow for the evaluation of the performance of individual Councilors and would assist in determining which Councilors would remain in the organisation.

Mr Norman Munzhelele, Acting Deputy Director-General: ICT Policy Development, DOC advised that the Department had worked closely with ICASA in developing the PMS.  The current PMS was presented to the Speaker in August 2011 but an updated document could be made available to the Committee if required.  The applicable target dates would be included in the strategic plan for the 2012/13 fiscal year, which would be presented to the Committee in due course.  The point made by Members of the Committee regarding the lawsuits against ICASA was taken.  ICASA would take the provisions of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA) into consideration.  The PFMA was applicable to ICASA as the entity collected revenue for the National Revenue Fund.

Mr Munzhelele said that the members of the Evaluation Panel would need to be experts in the ICT, telecommunications and postal services sectors.  South Africa operated in the global communications arena and the institutions of the United Nations (e.g. the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)) was willing to provide assistance.  He agreed that the number of terms of office for Councilors should be limited to two.  Strategic plans were developed for a three-year cycle and the terms of office of Councilors should ideally be aligned to the strategic plan cycle.

Dr Stephen Mncube, Chairperson of the ICASA Council expressed appreciation for the manner in which the DOC collaborated with the ICASA Council in developing the PMS.  Both parties were in agreement and the process was nearing completion.  It was necessary for a formative, non-judgmental evaluation to be conducted before a summative evaluation of the actual outcomes was done.  The restructuring process was underway and the necessary budgetary provision had been made.  A separate briefing to the Committee on the modernisation plan would be made in due course.  ICASA had held team-building exercises and briefing sessions to prepare personnel for the impending structural changes to the organisation.  Three workshops had been held during which delegates were addressed by international speakers on the experience of other countries and the best practices that needed to be applied.  A report on the workshops was awaited.

Dr Mncube explained that ICASA had changed the system for allocating responsibility for projects to Councilors.  Previously, responsibility for certain projects was given to specific Councilors.  Certain major projects required a greater degree of input, requiring more Councilors to work on the project.  A conference was scheduled for 20 February 2012 to discuss the future direction of ICASA.  Representatives from the Canadian and Australian regulatory authorities had been invited to share the experiences of those countries.  In general, regulations followed government policy.

Dr Marcia Socikwa, ICASA Councilor explained that Councilors worked on projects in a collective manner.  30% of the workload was allocated to serving on special committees, for example the Audit and Risk and the IT Committees.  The Chairperson of the ICASA Board chaired all special committee meetings.  Councilors conducted their own, independent research.  The issuing of a regulation required 19 steps to be followed in a complex process.  The structure of the regulatory authority needed to take the workload of Councilors into account and be aligned to the requirements of the Electronic Communications Act (ECA).  Instances where licenses were granted but not issued usually occurred when the applicant was unable to obtain sufficient financing.

Dr Mncube added that the restructuring of ICASA needed to take into consideration the impending relocation of the organisation to new premises.  He hoped that the DOC would make funds available for the relocation.

Ms Muthambi said that it was not clear how work was allocated to Councilors.  She queried the effectiveness of a process whereby a license was granted and not issued for whatever reason and wanted to know who was held responsible for regulations that resulted in legal challenges.  The strategic plan of ICASA included the establishment of a PMS, which was the function of the executive management of the organisation.  She wanted more clarity on the role of Councilors, all of whom were appointed on a full-time basis.

Dr Socikwa explained that work was allocated in a democratic manner.  All Councilors were required to attend meetings and little work was allocated to individual Councilors.  The administrative functions were performed by the General Manager.  The Council was responsible for developing the strategic plans of the organisation.  Responsibility for licensing and issuing regulations was not delegated.  She offered to provide a separate briefing to the Committee on the process followed in issuing regulations.

Ms Morutoa asked for more detail on the 30% of work done by Councilors on special committees.

Dr Socikwa explained that the Chairperson appointed Councilors to serve on various governance and special external committees for a period of two years.  Responsibility was rotated amongst the Councilors.  In addition, Councilors served on external entities, such as the SADC regulatory body and the ITU.

Mr Kekana added his concern to whether or not ICASA required nine full-time Councilors.  He queried if the current Councilors were all performing in a satisfactory manner.  Individual scorecards would assist in determining which Councilors were delivering acceptable performance.  The issue of the optimum number of Councilors required for ICASA was currently under discussion.  The restructuring of the organisation should improve the operation of ICASA.

Mr B Steyn (DA) asked what the impact had been of the structural changes to ICASA on the Councilors.  He requested a progress report on the targets that had been set for the 2011/12 financial year.  He asked if mechanisms were in place to assist non-performing Councilors to achieve their objectives.  He wanted to know what action was taken if targets were not achieved.

Ms S Tsebe (ANC) warned that ICASA needed to be realistic about meeting the ambitious targets that had been set for March 2012.  She wondered if ICASA had sufficient capacity to meet the objectives that had been set.  She did not accept the excuse offered for presenting an out-of-date briefing document to the Committee.  The Committee required concrete proposals for addressing the issues concerning the processes followed by ICASA and for implementing the Committee’s recommendations.

Ms Morutoa added that the concerns of Members regarding the target dates were important.

Dr Mncube replied that the target dates had been set in accordance with ICASA’s five-year strategic plan, which had been submitted to the Minister of Communications.  Once approved by the Minister, the plan would be presented to the Committee.  The issues raised by Members had been taken into account in developing the strategic plan.  The plans were not finite and continued to evolve.

Mr E Kholwane (ANC), Chairperson of the Committee observed that the work plan appeared to be a consequence of the PMS.  Once the Committee approved the PMS, other processes would follow.  The Committee would be briefed on the work plan for the forthcoming fiscal year at a later date.  Once established, the Evaluation Panel would submit a report to the Committee on its operations.  The inclusion of the current work plan had caused confusion.  He suggested that the Committee agreed the principle and structure of the PMS and submitted a report to the National Assembly.

Ms Muthambi said that the issuing of regulations for digital migration was a long-standing matter.  She wondered if the target date of March 2012 was feasible and what progress had been made.  She asked how ICASA planned to address the issue of licensees preferring to pay fines rather than providing connectivity services to rural and disadvantaged communities.  The issue concerning responsibility remained unclear.  She suggested that a responsible person was indicated for each performance indicator.

Ms Ndabeni pointed out that the purpose of the briefing was to obtain the Committee’s approval of the PMS, which would be applicable to all Councilors.  An individual performance agreement would be entered into with each Councilor by the Minister.  The national objectives were taken into account by ICASA when the various strategic priorities were set.

Ms Killian proposed that the Committee adopted the PMS as presented by the DOC.  The proposal was seconded by Ms Tsebe.

Adoption of Committee Programme
Mr Kholwane informed Members that a date in the Committee’s programme for the first quarter of 2012 had to be changed.  Most Committee meetings would be held on Tuesdays.  The Committee’s schedule was dominated by briefings on the strategic plans of various entities and he had requested that reporting entities ensured that the Committee received briefing documents well in time.

Ms Killian proposed that the Committee adopted the amended programme.  The proposal was seconded by Ms Tsebe.

The meeting was adjourned.