Convergence Bill and ICASA Amendment Bill: voting

Meeting report

COMMUNICATIONS PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
27 October 2005
ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS (CONVERGENCE) BILL: VOTING

Chairperson: Mr M Lekgoro (ANC)

Documents handed out:
 

Independent Communications Authority of South Africa Amendment Bill B32B-2005
Electronic Communications Bill (Convergence Bill) B9B-2005
[These were the versions of the Bills as voted on by the Portfolio Committee]

SUMMARY
The Electronic Communications Bill (Convergence Bill) was adopted with amendments. The Democratic Alliance noted its abstention from voting for Chapter 4. Discussion focused mainly on technical matters such as clause numbering and cross references to other parts of the Bill and other legislation.

MINUTES
Finalisation of Convergence Bill
The Director General commented that there were no new items in the Bill. There might be an error, but those they would indicate.

In reply to Ms Smuts asking if members of the industry should be offered an opportunity to raise any issues, the Chair said that that might be a dangerous exercise.

Mr Oliphant said that although there were no new items in the Bill, there were a lot of corrections that needed to be cleaned up plus proposed amendments and opposition arguments to be looked at.

Ms Smuts was pleased that Clause 81(1)(d) had been amended to include private schools that were poor. She wondered if the proposed amendment on frequency with regard to radio-quiet zones had been attended to in Clause 31(6)(b) but did not receive a reply.

The Chair put the motion of desirability on the Convergence Bill to the Committee and this was agreed to with no objection. The Committee then went through each of the clauses.

Clause 1 Definitions
Mr Oliphant said that the ANC agreed to Clause 1 with the small cross reference when it came to electronic communications licence, which was referred to in another section. It had been agreed that the definition of common carrier be amended.

The State Law Advisor noted a few changes made to definitions:
- "Complaints and Compliance Committee" now read, ‘‘Complaints and Compliance Committee’’ means the committee established by the Authority in terms of section 17A of the ICASA Act.
- "dominant", the Competition Act did not define this so the wording was: "has the same meaning given to that term in section 7 of the Competition Act".
- "investigation unit" had been deleted.

The ANC and the Democratic Alliance noted their agreement to these changes and the Committee accepted Clause 1

Clause 2 Objects of the Act
The State Law Advisor indicated that they did not have any matters to raise here.

Mr Oliphant said that the objects were clear and the ANC supported the clause.

Ms S Vos (IFP) raised her concern that an emphasis should be placed on women who needed to be uplifted.

There followed a discussion on the issue of women and that women had been historically disadvantaged.

The Director General believed that women, youth and people with disabilities should be included.

Ms Moratoa (ANC) agreed with this suggestion.

However, Ms Vos maintained that they needed to make special reference to women.

Mr Oliphant said that the ANC moved for the Director General’s proposal.

Ms Moratoa said that it was good for Ms Vos to raise her concern, but she agreed with the re-draft proposed by the Director General.

Ms Vos accepted this decision and the Committee agreed to Clause 2 with this amendment.

Clause 3
This clause was accepted without any changes.

Clause 4
Ms Smuts proposed that they needed to insert a reference to the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act in this clause but this was rejected. This clause was accepted without any changes.

Clause 5
Mr Oliphant said that they rejected the DA’s proposal with regard to Ministerial Directives.

Clauses 6, 7 and 8 were agreed to.

Clauses 9 – 19 were accepted.

Clause 20 was agreed to but with the DA abstaining.

Clause 21
Ms Smuts moved to include MTN’s "excellent suggestion" with regard to operators sharing facilities and that people should be encouraged to share facilities on their masts.

The Chair noted that all operators indicated that they were committed to this suggestion.

Mr G Marumo (Sentech CEO) noted that MTN had suggested that operators should share facilities, and it had been indicated that sharing and co-location was already happening. He said that they agreed to the MTN formulation.

The Chair said that given the discussion, they thought it was desirable to include this.

Mr Oliphant said that the difficulty was that they did not have a formulation for such a proposal.

Mr G Marumo (Sentech CEO) commented that the problem lay with the municipalities who were delaying the application for masts by operators, as explained by Vodacom and Cell C. They did not need a law as such on this matter, it was more a matter of a spirit of cooperation.

The Chair noted that the Committee agreed not to make any changes to the clause.

Clauses 22 and 23 were agreed to.

The Chair put on record the DA’s abstention to all clauses in Chapter 4 dealing with Electronic Communications Networks and Communications Facilities.

Clauses 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 were agreed to.

Clause 34
The Committee approved a technical amendment made by the State Law Advisor and agreed to the clause.

Clauses 35 and 36 were approved.

Clause 37
The State Law Advisor suggested adding, "within the time frames prescribed".

This clause and the amendment were agreed to.

Clauses 38 to 42 were approved.

Clause 43
This clause was agreed to with a technical amendment by the State Law Advisor.

Clause 44
This clause was agreed to with amended cross references to Clause 43.

Clauses 45 to 54 were approved.

Clauses 55 to 62 were agreed to subject to the correction of certain cross references.

Clause 74
There was discussion around the State Law Advisor’s suggestion that the wording correctly point to this being an administrative issue in 74(2). The State Law Advisor’s advised of the difficulty of prosecuting in terms of failure to use one’s licence and not complying materially with licence conditions.

However, the Committee agreed to leave the matter as is.

Clauses 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 with name change noted, 81, 82 were agreed to.

Clause 83
The State Law Advisor asked who appointed the Chief Executive Officer.

After a short ANC caucus, it was confirmed that the Board and not the Minister would appoint the Chief Executive Officer.

The clause was agreed to.

Clauses 84 to 86 were agreed to.

Clause 87
It was noted that the IFP was on board finally and the Committee agreed to the clause.

Clauses 88, 89, 90, 91, 92 agreed to.

Clause 93
Ms Smuts asked, in the light of the argument against Telkom’s monopoly on spectrum, why Cell C could not have access to 900.

The Director General answered that there was a process for these things. They needed to ensure stability.

Mr Oliphant said that his difficulty was that there was no other provision there, and if they took this in the spirit of transitional arrangements, it was like any other law, it would remain the status quo.

Mr Oliphant said that the ANC moved to keep the clause as is.

Clauses 94 to 96 were agreed to.

Clause 97
Ms Smuts said that the DA moved for amending the name to Electronic Communications Act.

It was pointed out that the name change did not originate with the DA. It came from the Director General.

The Chair noted that the amendment to Clause 97 had been accepted.

Schedules
It was agreed that the reference to Section 27 would be removed from the Schedule.

Mr Oliphant said that all references to Convergence Act would become Electronic Communications Act.

The Bill was approved with amendments by the Committee.